Just over one year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last given the green light as Formula One’s latest entry for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from nothing has entailed a hectic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the final race of the season to be staged in the United States, with around 100 days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in the spring of 2023 soon after it was established, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core from that point and gets a knowing grin when considering the journey.
“You might get a short period thinking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he says. “But then the next minute you think: ‘Well, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious seasons of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the challenge of launching the all-American Cadillac brand, a factory team sponsored by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Creating an F1 team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you rarely get the chance to transform cultural approach.”
With every day that goes by focus are more focused on the looming decisive point in Melbourne and targets are being handled.
“You have to assume that any incoming team coming in is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he thought the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we arrive and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender performing the proper actions on the race track. After we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate progression from there on.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Drive
In the summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for the 2026 season, a pair distinguished for their vast knowledge in performing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a tough opening, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I am confident with this structure, with this group, these people, there is every reason that we can't manage to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with employees now reaching in excess of 400 and intended to attain the goal of 600 swiftly. In addition to their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the process of finishing an headquarters at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to produce the new engine, planned for the 2029 season – until then they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organisation, at odds with the trend in the sport for increased consolidation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred.
NASA Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” remarked Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how difficult 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 implemented, rather than the traditional management structure, a flat management structure akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all tackling distinct elements of the project across a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they report it to their team leader, that manager communicates with a manager in another department, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” notes Chester. “So we empower people to really get on with it. Eliminating management approval for everything is much smoother and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this flexible approach will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is no little amount riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
