Just over one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the official approval as the world of Formula One's newest entrant for the 2026 season. Building the squad from scratch has required a intense operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport arrives on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be staged in the US, with just over three months to go before they make their debut for the first time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic team in the spring of 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its core from that point and has a knowing grin when thinking about the journey.
“There might be a brief moment thinking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in under three years,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Chester achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the task of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, GM, into F1.
“Establishing an grand prix team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you rarely get the possibility to change cultural approach.”
With each day that elapses thoughts are sharper on the looming moment of truth in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team coming in is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon commented recently and while the CTO shared this view he thought the team had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So that we turn up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation executing the proper actions on the race track. When we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate improvement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Push
In late summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their priceless expertise in competing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and we expect probably a difficult start, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to finish last. In my view with this structure, with this team, these personnel, it's entirely possible we won't be able to progress rapidly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in full swing, with personnel now up to over 400 and planned to reach the objective of 600 members rapidly. Alongside their existing facility at the UK base, the squad are in the process of building an headquarters at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are building the facility to build the 2029 engine, set for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a complex organization, contrary to the trend in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred to.
Apollo Inspiration
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” said Lowdon ahead of the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. OK, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all working on various components of the project at a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a process where an issue arises and they raise it up to their team leader, that manager communicates with a leader somewhere else, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” explains the CTO. “So we empower staff to handle things directly. Moving away from hierarchical consent for all decisions is much smoother and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this flexible approach will be tested in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a considerable amount at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
