Just over twelve months ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's most recent entrant for 2026. Building the team from the ground up has entailed a frenetic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 converges on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the final race of the campaign to be hosted in the America, with around three months to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed project in March 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart from that point and gets a amused expression when considering the journey.
“You can have a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Wow, what an achievement what the team has created in less than three years,’” Chester states. “But then the following moment you think: ‘Yes, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Chester achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical development at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has been quite like the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the corporate entity, GM, into F1.
“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 chance to change team culture.”
With each day that elapses minds are increasingly concentrated on the looming moment of truth in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect 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 earlier this year and while Chester shared this view he believed the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “In order that we show up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender executing the correct procedures on the track. When we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Effort
In the summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a pair notable for their vast knowledge in competing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas reflected the mood of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be probably a difficult start, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. In my view given this organization, with these individuals, these personnel, it's entirely possible we can't manage to advance swiftly to the front and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in top gear, with personnel now reaching in excess of 400 and scheduled to attain the goal of 600 members swiftly. In addition to their present headquarters at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to produce the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, different from the movement in F1 for increased consolidation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester alluded.
Apollo Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” remarked Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how difficult it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a flat management structure akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of project teams all focusing on different aspects of the program in a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a procedure where an issue arises and they raise it up to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a manager somewhere else, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” notes Chester. “So we empower staff to handle things directly. Eliminating hierarchical consent for each action is far more efficient and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this agile strategy will be evaluated in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a significant degree riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
