A little more than a full year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the official approval as Formula One’s newest entry for the 2026 season. Building the squad from nothing has required a frenetic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be hosted in the United States, with just over three months to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in March 2023 soon after it was established, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center ever since and gets a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“There might be a brief moment reflecting at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in under three years,’” he says. “But then the following moment you realize: ‘Well, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
The CTO had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical development at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the task of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a factory team backed by the owner, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an F1 team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you won't have the chance to transform organizational mindset.”
With every day that passes focus are sharper on the looming critical moment in Melbourne and expectations are being handled.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad coming in is going to be last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” the team principal commented earlier this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we show up and we operate well. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender performing the proper actions on the race track. After we prove that our credentials are solid, then we want to show improvement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Effort
In late summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a duo distinguished for their priceless expertise in performing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We have a massive task to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I am confident with this structure, with this team, these people, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in overdrive, with employees now up to in excess of 400 and planned to reach the objective of 600 quickly. In addition to their existing facility at the UK base, the team are in the phase of completing an headquarters at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to produce the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, 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.
Space Mission Model
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” stated Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in July. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, rather than the traditional management structure, a decentralized management akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all focusing on distinct elements of the project in a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a process where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their supervisor, that leader talks to a manager at a different location, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” says Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to take charge. Avoiding managerial sign-off for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
The Future
The success of this nimble methodology will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is no little amount on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
