Approximately a full year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as F1's latest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from the ground up has involved a hectic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One descends on Las Vegas this weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the season to be hosted in the United States, with just over a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed project in the spring of 2023 not long after it was established, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart from that point and gets a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“You might get a brief moment looking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we have built in under three years,’” Chester states. “But then the following moment you think: ‘Yes, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in charge of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the mission of launching the iconic American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Creating an Formula One team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you rarely get the possibility to change team culture.”
With every day that elapses thoughts are sharper on the looming decisive point in Melbourne and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad coming in is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Chester echoed this he felt the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation doing the correct procedures on the track. When we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on forward movement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Push
In August they signed Checo Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo distinguished for their invaluable experience in performing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a tough opening, because it is F1. But we’re not there to finish last. I believe with this structure, with this team, these personnel, it's entirely possible we can't manage to progress rapidly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in full swing, with personnel now reaching over 400 and scheduled to reach the goal of 600 members rapidly. Alongside their existing facility at Silverstone, the team are in the midst of finishing an HQ at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to build the new engine, set for 2029 – until then they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organization, at odds with the trend in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which the CTO alluded.
NASA Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” said Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British GP in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how difficult it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all tackling distinct elements of the project in a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their manager, that manager consults a supervisor somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is much smoother and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this agile strategy will be evaluated in the pressure of racing next season and there is a significant degree on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
