Approximately twelve months previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's most recent participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from nothing has required a intense work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport descends on Vegas this weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the championship to be hosted in the United States, with just over 100 days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic operation in early 2023 shortly after it was created, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart since then and enjoys a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“You can have a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we have built in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the very next instant you think: ‘Yeah, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in command of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the task of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an Formula One team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you rarely get the possibility to alter cultural approach.”
With each passing day that goes by focus are sharper on the looming critical moment in Melbourne and expectations are being handled.
“One must presume that any incoming team joining the grid is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal commented recently and while Nick Chester shared this view he felt the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we arrive and we function efficiently. We want to show that this is a professional operation doing the correct procedures on the track. When we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we want to show progression subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Effort
In August they contracted Checo Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo distinguished for their priceless expertise in performing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver echoed the mood of determined optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and we expect almost certainly a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to finish last. I am confident with this structure, with this group, these personnel, there is every reason that we can't manage to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with personnel now at over 400 and scheduled to reach the goal of six hundred rapidly. Alongside their existing facility at Silverstone, the organization are in the process of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are building the center to manufacture the new engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, contrary to the trend in the sport for increased consolidation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred to.
NASA Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” said Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all tackling distinct elements of the mission across a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a protocol where a challenge emerges and they report it to their supervisor, that manager talks to a supervisor somewhere else, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” says the CTO. “So we empower team members to really get on with it. Moving away from management approval for each action is much smoother and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this nimble methodology will be proven in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a significant degree riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
