Approximately a full year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as Formula One’s most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from scratch has required a intense operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As Formula One descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the season finale of the campaign to be held in the America, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed 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 core from that point and enjoys a knowing grin when thinking about the experience.
“You can have five minutes looking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in less than three years,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you think: ‘Yeah, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
The CTO had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the mission of launching the all-American Cadillac name, a works entry sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Establishing an grand prix team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you rarely get the opportunity to transform team culture.”
With every day that elapses minds are sharper on the impending moment of truth in Australia and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad joining the grid is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while Chester echoed this he thought the team had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So that we turn up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender performing the correct procedures on the circuit. After we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we want to show improvement after that.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Drive
In late summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Bottas expressed the mood of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I believe with this setup, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we can't manage to progress rapidly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in overdrive, with staff now reaching over 400 and intended to hit the goal of 600 members quickly. Alongside their existing facility at Silverstone, the team are in the process of finishing an main base at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are developing the plant to manufacture the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex organization, different from the trend in F1 for increased consolidation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred.
NASA Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” stated Graeme Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in July. “We are pragmatic, we understand how difficult it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, instead of the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of specialist groups all working on distinct elements of the mission at a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a procedure where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their manager, that manager consults a manager at a different location, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” says Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to handle things directly. Eliminating managerial sign-off for everything is much smoother and quicker.”
The Future
The success of this flexible strategy will be tested in the pressure of racing next season and there is a considerable amount riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their development driver the young American Colton Herta
