A little more than twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the green light as the world of Formula One's most recent entry for the 2026 season. Building the team from nothing has required a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One 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 campaign to be hosted in the United States, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are cognizant there will not be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent operation in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was established, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center from that point and gets a knowing grin when thinking about the experience.
“You might get a short period thinking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in less than three years,’” he notes. “But then the very next instant you think: ‘Yeah, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in charge of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has truly matched the challenge of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a factory team sponsored by the corporate entity, GM, into Formula One.
“Building an F1 team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you won't have the opportunity to alter team culture.”
With each day that elapses focus are increasingly concentrated on the approaching critical moment in Australia and expectations are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So that we arrive and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team doing the correct procedures on the circuit. When we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we want to show progression after that.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Push
In late summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for the 2026 season, a duo distinguished for their priceless expertise in performing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the mood of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be probably a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I believe given this organization, with this team, these people, there is every reason that we can't manage to advance swiftly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in top gear, with staff now reaching more than 400 and scheduled to hit the target of 600 rapidly. Alongside their existing facility at the UK base, the team are in the process of completing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to build the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex organisation, contrary to the direction in F1 for more centralization, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred.
Space Mission Model
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we know how tough it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Well, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of project teams all working on distinct elements of the program across a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a process where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that supervisor consults a supervisor at a different location, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” says Chester. “So we empower people to take charge. Avoiding managerial sign-off for all decisions is much smoother and more rapid.”
The Future
The success of this nimble strategy will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a significant degree riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
