Just over one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as Formula One’s newest participant for the 2026 season. Building the organization from nothing has required a hectic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As Formula One descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be held in the US, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent project in the spring of 2023 soon after it was established, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart from that point and has a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“There might be a short period thinking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “Then the following moment you consider: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the mission of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a works entry sponsored by the owner, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an F1 team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you don’t get the possibility to alter team culture.”
With each day that elapses minds are sharper on the approaching decisive point in Melbourne and targets are being managed.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad coming in 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 the CTO shared this view he felt the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So we turn up and we operate well. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the circuit. After we prove that we’re really credible, then we will focus on forward movement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Push
In late summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a tandem notable for their priceless expertise in competing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the mood of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and we expect most likely a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I am confident with this structure, with this team, these people, there’s no reason why we can't manage to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in overdrive, with personnel now up to in excess of 400 and scheduled to reach the objective of six hundred rapidly. Complementing their current base at Silverstone, the squad are in the midst of building an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to manufacture the power unit, planned for 2029 – for now they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated structure, at odds with the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred.
NASA Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” said Graeme Lowdon just before the British GP in July. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of specialist groups all tackling various components of the project at a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a protocol where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their team leader, that manager consults a supervisor somewhere else, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” says Nick Chester. “So we empower people to handle things directly. Eliminating management approval for all decisions is much smoother and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this agile strategy will be tested in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
