Just over twelve months previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the go-ahead as Formula One’s newest entrant for 2026. Building the organization from nothing has involved a frenetic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be hosted in the America, with approximately 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic operation in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its center from that point and gets a wry smile when considering the ride.
“You might get a brief moment thinking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical development at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the challenge of introducing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a factory team sponsored by the owner, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Creating an Formula One team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you rarely get the possibility to transform organizational mindset.”
With every day that goes by focus are increasingly concentrated on the approaching critical moment in Australia and targets are being handled.
“You have to assume that any incoming team entering the sport is going to be last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal stated earlier this year and while Chester echoed this he thought the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the circuit. After we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we will focus on forward movement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Push
In August they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for the 2026 season, a pair notable for their invaluable experience in operating at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the attitude of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to finish last. In my view given this organization, with this group, this staff, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and planned to hit the objective of 600 quickly. Complementing their existing facility at Silverstone, the squad are in the process of completing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex structure, at odds with the direction in F1 for more centralization, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all focusing on distinct elements of the project at a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they report it to their supervisor, that leader communicates with a leader at a different location, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” explains Chester. “We give authority to people to really get on with it. Avoiding management approval for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this flexible strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a considerable amount at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the young American Colton Herta
