A little more than one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the green light as the world of Formula One's latest participant for 2026. Constructing the squad from scratch has required a frenetic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As the sport arrives on Vegas this weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be held in the America, with just over 100 days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic project in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart since then and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the ride.
“There might be a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Incredible, how impressive what the team has created in under three years,’” he notes. “But then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Nick Chester had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical development at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the task of introducing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a works entry sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Creating an grand prix team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the chance to transform cultural approach.”
With every day that elapses focus are sharper on the approaching decisive point in Melbourne and targets are being managed.
“One must presume that any new team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while Chester echoed this he thought the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he says. “In order that we show up and we operate well. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation executing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we prove that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on progression from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive
In late summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a duo distinguished for their vast knowledge in operating at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver echoed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to finish last. I am confident given this organization, with this group, these personnel, there’s no reason why we can't manage to advance swiftly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in overdrive, with personnel now reaching over 400 and intended to attain the goal of six hundred rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at the UK base, the squad are in the process of finishing an headquarters at Fishers in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to produce the power unit, planned for the 2029 season – until then they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, contrary to the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester alluded.
NASA Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we understand how difficult it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, instead of the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of project teams all tackling different aspects of the project across a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they report it to their manager, that supervisor consults a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” explains Nick Chester. “We give authority to team members to take charge. Avoiding managerial sign-off for all decisions is far more efficient and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this nimble methodology will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is no little amount riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
