Approximately a full year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last given the green light as F1's latest participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from the ground up has required a intense pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As the sport converges on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be staged in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic team in the spring of 2023 soon after it was formed, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core from that point and enjoys a wry smile when thinking about the experience.
“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 says. “But then the next minute you realize: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Chester had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious seasons of the mid-2000s and was in command of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the challenge of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a works entry supported by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Creating an grand prix team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you rarely get the opportunity to transform organizational mindset.”
With every day that passes focus are more focused on the approaching moment of truth in the Australian GP and targets are being handled.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he believed the team had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “In order that we show up and we function efficiently. We want to show that this is a professional operation performing the correct procedures on the circuit. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we want to show improvement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Drive
In the summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a pair notable for their priceless expertise in operating at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas reflected the attitude of combative optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. In my view with this setup, with these individuals, these people, it's entirely possible we won't be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with staff now reaching more than 400 and scheduled to attain the objective of six hundred swiftly. Alongside their present headquarters at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of building an HQ at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to produce the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – until then they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated structure, at odds with the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Chester referred to.
NASA Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” stated Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we know how challenging it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all focusing on distinct elements of the project in a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a procedure where someone has a problem and they report it to their manager, that supervisor talks to a leader somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” notes the CTO. “We give authority to people to really get on with it. Eliminating managerial sign-off for each action is much smoother and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this agile approach will be proven in the pressure of racing next season and there is a considerable amount at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
