Just over a full year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the official approval as Formula One’s newest entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from nothing has entailed a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As Formula One arrives on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the final race of the campaign to be staged in the United States, with just over a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are aware there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the nascent project in March 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart from that point and gets a knowing grin when considering the journey.
“There might be a brief moment looking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he says. “And then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yes, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious years of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac brand, a factory team supported by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Establishing an F1 team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you don’t get the chance to change organizational mindset.”
With each day that passes minds are more focused on the approaching critical moment in the Australian GP and targets are being set realistically.
“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 feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted recently and while Nick Chester shared this view he thought the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “In order that we arrive and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the circuit. When we prove that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on forward movement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Push
In late summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a tandem distinguished for their invaluable experience in operating at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas reflected the mood of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a difficult start, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, these people, there is every reason that we won't be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with employees now at in excess of 400 and intended to reach the target of six hundred quickly. Alongside their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the process of building an headquarters at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to manufacture the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, at odds with the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred to.
Space Mission Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” stated Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We are pragmatic, 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 it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of project teams all tackling different aspects of the project in a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that leader communicates with a supervisor in another department, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” notes Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to really get on with it. Moving away from managerial sign-off for each action is far more efficient and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this nimble approach will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is no little amount at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
