Approximately one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's newest participant for 2026. Establishing the team from nothing has entailed a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As the sport converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the last event of the season to be staged in the America, with around three months to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the nascent team in early 2023 shortly after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core from that point and has a wry smile when thinking about the ride.
“You can have a brief moment looking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we have built in less than three years,’” Chester states. “And then the following moment you realize: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious years of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has been quite like the task of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a factory team sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Building an F1 team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the chance to change cultural approach.”
With each passing day that passes minds are sharper on the looming critical moment in Melbourne and expectations are being handled.
“One must presume that any incoming team coming in is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented recently and while the CTO echoed this he felt the team had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So we arrive and we operate well. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team doing the right things on the circuit. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Drive
In the summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the mood of combative optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We have a massive task to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to finish last. In my view with this setup, with this team, these personnel, it's entirely possible we won't be able to get relatively quickly to the front and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with personnel now at more than 400 and scheduled to reach the goal of six hundred quickly. Alongside their present headquarters at the UK base, the organization are in the midst of completing 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 center to produce the power unit, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organisation, different from the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred.
NASA Inspiration
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” stated Graeme Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, rather than the traditional management structure, a flat management structure akin to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of project teams all focusing on distinct elements of the mission at a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a process where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that leader communicates with a supervisor at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” explains Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to really get on with it. Avoiding management approval for each action is far more efficient and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this agile methodology will be tested in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a considerable amount riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta
