A little more than one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the green light as the world of Formula One's latest entry for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from the ground up has entailed a intense operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As the sport converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the season finale of the campaign to be held in the US, with around a hundred 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 never-ending endeavor, they are aware there will not be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic operation in the spring of 2023 soon after it was created, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and has a knowing grin when thinking about the experience.
“You can have five minutes thinking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we’ve done in under three years,’” Chester states. “But then the very next instant you think: ‘Well, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in Alonso's title-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical development at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the task of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the owner, GM, into F1.
“Establishing an F1 team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you don’t get the opportunity to transform cultural approach.”
With each passing day that passes minds are increasingly concentrated on the impending moment of truth in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new 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 noted recently and while Chester echoed this he thought the team had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we turn up and we perform competently. We want to show that we’re a proper team doing the proper actions on the circuit. When we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we want to show forward movement after that.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Drive
In August they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a duo remarkable for their priceless expertise in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the mood of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We face a massive task to do, and it’s going to be probably a difficult start, because it is F1. But we’re not there to finish last. I am confident with this structure, with this team, this staff, it's entirely possible we won't be able to get relatively quickly to the front and achieve good results.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in top gear, with personnel now up to more than 400 and scheduled to attain the target of 600 quickly. Complementing their existing facility at the UK base, the organization are in the phase of completing an HQ at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to manufacture the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a intricate organisation, at odds with the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred to.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in July. “We are pragmatic, we understand how tough it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of project teams all working on various components of the program across a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they report it to their manager, that supervisor communicates with a manager in another department, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” explains Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to take charge. Eliminating managerial sign-off for each action is much smoother and quicker.”
The Future
The success of this agile approach will be proven in the pressure of racing next season and there is a significant degree riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
