Just over one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last given the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's latest entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from the ground up has entailed a frenetic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As Formula One arrives on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be hosted in the United States, with around 100 days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed project in March 2023 shortly after it was created, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart since then and gets a amused expression when thinking about the experience.
“There might be five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we have built in under three years,’” he notes. “And then the next minute you think: ‘Well, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's title-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in control of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has been quite like the task of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a factory team backed by the owner, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Building an F1 team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you don’t get the opportunity to alter organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that elapses focus are sharper on the impending moment of truth in the Australian GP and goals are being handled.
“One must presume that any new team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we should be there,” he says. “So we show up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team executing the right things on the track. Once we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on forward movement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Push
In the summer they contracted Checo 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 and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the mood of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and it’s going to be probably a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. In my view with this structure, with this group, this staff, there’s no reason why we won't be able to get relatively quickly to the front and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in overdrive, with personnel now up to over 400 and intended to reach the objective of 600 rapidly. Alongside their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the process of building an headquarters at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to produce the new engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, contrary to the trend in F1 for increased consolidation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred to.
Space Mission Model
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” said Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how difficult it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, instead of the traditional management structure, a decentralized management akin to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all tackling different aspects of the mission across a different facilities.
“When you must follow a protocol where an issue arises and they raise it up to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a supervisor in another department, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” says Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable people to handle things directly. Eliminating managerial sign-off for all decisions is much smoother and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this nimble strategy will be tested in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a considerable amount on the line for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
