Approximately a full year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the go-ahead as Formula One’s latest entry for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from the ground up has entailed a hectic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 converges on Vegas this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the season finale of the season to be staged in the US, with around 100 days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the nascent project in March 2023 not long after it was established, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart since then and enjoys a amused expression when thinking about the experience.
“There might be five minutes reflecting at what you’ve done and go: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we’ve done in under three years,’” Chester states. “But then the very next instant you think: ‘Yeah, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Nick Chester had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious years of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of engineering strategy 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 supported by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Establishing an Formula One team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you don’t get the opportunity to alter team culture.”
With each passing day that elapses focus are more focused on the impending moment of truth in Australia and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team joining the grid is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Chester shared this view he felt the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “In order that we turn up and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation executing the right things on the race track. After we prove that our credentials are solid, then we want to show forward movement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Drive
In August they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a pair remarkable for their invaluable experience in operating at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Bottas echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a massive task to do, and it will likely be most likely a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I am confident with this setup, with this team, these personnel, there is every reason that we won't be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with personnel now up to more than 400 and intended to attain the objective of 600 swiftly. In addition to their present headquarters at the UK base, the team are in the process of completing an main base at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the 2029 engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – for now they will use power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, at odds with the trend in the sport for increased consolidation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester alluded.
NASA Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” remarked Lowdon ahead of the British GP in July. “We are pragmatic, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of project teams all tackling different aspects of the mission in a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their team leader, that manager consults a supervisor somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” explains the CTO. “We give authority to team members to take charge. Eliminating hierarchical consent for all decisions is far more efficient and faster.”
The Future
The success of this agile strategy will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta
