A little more than twelve months in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the go-ahead as F1's most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Building the squad from the ground up has required a frenetic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As Formula One converges on Vegas this weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the championship to be staged in the United States, with just over three months to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the nascent project in early 2023 shortly after it was created, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center ever since and has a wry smile when thinking about the ride.
“You can have five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we have built in less than three years,’” he says. “And then the next minute you consider: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
Chester achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the mission of bringing the all-American Cadillac brand, a works entry sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Establishing an F1 team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you rarely get the possibility to transform cultural approach.”
With each day that goes by thoughts are sharper on the impending moment of truth in Melbourne and targets are being handled.
“You have to assume that any incoming team coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated recently and while Nick Chester shared this view he believed the team had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we turn up and we operate well. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team doing the proper actions on the circuit. When we prove that our credentials are solid, then we want to show improvement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Drive
In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for the 2026 season, a pair distinguished for their invaluable experience in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We face a mountain of work to do, and we expect most likely a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to finish last. In my view with this structure, with this group, these personnel, it's entirely possible we can't manage to advance swiftly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with personnel now reaching in excess of 400 and intended to hit the target of six hundred quickly. Complementing their present headquarters at the UK base, the organization are in the process of completing an headquarters at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are building the plant to manufacture the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex organisation, contrary to the movement in F1 for increased consolidation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred to.
NASA Inspiration
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Graeme Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in July. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how difficult it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, instead of the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all tackling distinct elements of the project at a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a procedure where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their supervisor, that manager talks to a leader somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” notes Chester. “Therefore we enable people to really get on with it. Avoiding management approval for each action is so much cleaner and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this nimble strategy will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a considerable amount riding on this for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
