A little more than one year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the green light as Formula One’s latest participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from nothing has entailed a frenetic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be held in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed team in March 2023 soon after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core from that point and gets a amused expression when considering the experience.
“You might get a short period looking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in less than three years,’” he notes. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in charge of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the task of bringing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a factory team supported by the corporate entity, GM, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One 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 possibility to transform team culture.”
With each day that elapses minds are sharper on the approaching decisive point in Melbourne and goals are being managed.
“One must presume that any incoming team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon stated recently and while Nick Chester echoed this he thought the team had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So we show up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team performing the correct procedures on the track. Once we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show progression from there on.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Drive
In the summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair remarkable for their vast knowledge in operating at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the mood of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to stay at the back. In my view given this organization, with this group, this staff, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to the front and taste victory.”
To that end recruitment has been in overdrive, with personnel now reaching over 400 and intended to hit the objective of 600 members quickly. Complementing their present headquarters at Silverstone, the organization are in the process of finishing an HQ at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the facility to produce the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the movement in the sport for increased consolidation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Chester alluded.
NASA Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” remarked Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, rather than the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all focusing on distinct elements of the project across a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a process where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their manager, that manager consults a supervisor in another department, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” explains the CTO. “So we empower people to take charge. Moving away from hierarchical consent for all decisions is so much cleaner and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is no little amount on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
