Just over one year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the green light as the world of Formula One's newest entrant for the 2026 season. Building the team from the ground up has required a hectic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As F1 descends on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac understand time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be held in the America, with approximately 100 days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic team in March 2023 soon after it was established, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart since then and enjoys a knowing grin when reflecting on the journey.
“You can have five minutes looking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he says. “But then the following moment you consider: ‘Yes, we still have a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Chester had success at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in control of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the challenge of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a factory team supported by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Establishing an grand prix team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you rarely get the opportunity to change organizational mindset.”
With every day that passes thoughts are sharper on the looming critical moment in Melbourne and goals are being managed.
“You have to assume that any new team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he thought the team had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we arrive and we function efficiently. We want to show that we’re a proper team performing the correct procedures on the circuit. Once we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Push
In late summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their vast knowledge in operating at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the attitude of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a tough opening, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. In my view with this structure, with these individuals, this staff, it's entirely possible we won't be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in overdrive, with personnel now reaching more than 400 and intended to hit the target of 600 members swiftly. In addition to their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the process of completing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the power unit, set for 2029 – until then they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate organization, different from the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred to.
NASA Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in July. “We’re realistic, we know how tough it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a decentralized management similar to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all focusing on various components of the project across a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a process where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their team leader, that supervisor talks to a leader in another department, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” explains Chester. “We give authority to staff to really get on with it. Moving away from managerial sign-off for everything is far more efficient and quicker.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this nimble strategy will be proven in the heat of competition next season and there is a considerable amount at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
