A little more than twelve months in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the green light as the world of Formula One's newest participant for the 2026 season. Building the team from the ground up has involved a intense pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One arrives on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac know the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be held in the United States, with around 100 days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the nascent operation in early 2023 soon after it was formed, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center since then and gets a wry smile when thinking about the ride.
“You might get five minutes reflecting at what you’ve done and say: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what the team has created in less than three years,’” he says. “But then the next minute you consider: ‘Yeah, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical development at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the mission of launching the all-American Cadillac brand, a works entry backed by the owner, General Motors, into F1.
“Establishing an Formula One team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you rarely get the possibility to transform cultural approach.”
With each passing day that passes thoughts are sharper on the looming moment of truth in Melbourne and targets are being managed.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad coming in is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he says. “In order that we arrive and we operate well. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation executing the correct procedures on the race track. Once we prove that we’re really credible, then we will focus on progression after that.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Drive
In the summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their invaluable experience in operating at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Bottas echoed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it will likely be probably a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I believe with this setup, with this group, this staff, it's entirely possible we can't manage to progress rapidly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To that end hiring has been in overdrive, with employees now up to more than 400 and intended to hit the objective of 600 quickly. Complementing their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the phase of building an HQ at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are building the facility to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, different from the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred to.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a decentralized management similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all focusing on different aspects of the project in a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they report it to their team leader, that supervisor communicates with a supervisor in another department, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” explains Nick Chester. “We give authority to people to take charge. Moving away from hierarchical consent for each action is much smoother and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this nimble methodology will be proven in the heat of competition next season and there is a significant degree on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the young American Colton Herta
