Just over a full year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last given the official approval as F1's most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from the ground up has required a intense work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As F1 converges on Vegas this race weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time 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 inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic team in the spring of 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core since then and has a amused expression when reflecting on the experience.
“You might get five minutes looking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he says. “And then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in control of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has truly matched the challenge of introducing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the owner, General Motors, into F1.
“Creating an F1 team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you won't have the opportunity to transform team culture.”
With each passing day that elapses focus are sharper on the looming critical moment in Melbourne and targets are being handled.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon commented recently and while Chester shared this view he believed the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So that we turn up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team doing the proper actions on the circuit. When we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show progression after that.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Push
In late summer they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the front in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver expressed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a difficult start, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to finish last. I believe given this organization, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we won't be able to get relatively quickly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in full swing, with personnel now up to more than 400 and scheduled to attain the target of 600 members swiftly. In addition to their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the midst of finishing an HQ at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are developing the center to manufacture the power unit, set for the 2029 season – for now they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate structure, contrary to the trend in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred to.
NASA Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” remarked Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we understand how tough it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Well, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of project teams all focusing on various components of the project across a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a procedure where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that supervisor consults a supervisor at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” explains the CTO. “So we empower people to handle things directly. Avoiding managerial sign-off for all decisions is far more efficient and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this agile methodology will be tested in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a considerable amount at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
