A little more than one year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the official approval as Formula One’s most recent entrant for 2026. Constructing the organization from the ground up has required a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One converges on Vegas this race weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the final race of the season to be staged in the US, with approximately 100 days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed project in early 2023 shortly after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core since then and gets a amused expression when considering the journey.
“You can have a brief moment looking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he says. “Then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in Alonso's victorious years of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical development at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the task of launching the all-American Cadillac brand, a works entry sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an F1 team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you don’t get the chance to alter organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that passes focus are sharper on the impending decisive point in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.
“One must presume that any new team entering the sport is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal stated recently and while Nick Chester shared this view he thought the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So that we show up and we operate well. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team executing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we prove that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on improvement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Push
In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a duo remarkable for their priceless expertise in operating at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe with this setup, with these individuals, this staff, there is every reason that we can't manage to progress rapidly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with employees now at over 400 and intended to hit the goal of 600 quickly. Complementing their present headquarters at Silverstone, the team are in the process of building an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to produce the power unit, scheduled for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a intricate organization, contrary to the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred to.
NASA Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” remarked the team principal shortly before the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how tough it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, rather than the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of project teams all focusing on distinct elements of the program in a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a procedure where an issue arises and they report it to their team leader, that leader consults a supervisor in another department, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” explains the CTO. “So we empower people to handle things directly. Moving away from managerial sign-off for all decisions is so much cleaner and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this nimble methodology will be tested in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a significant degree riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
