A little more than a full year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's latest entry for 2026. Building the team from scratch has involved a hectic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac understand time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the campaign to be held in the US, with approximately three months to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are cognizant there will not be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed project in early 2023 not long after it was formed, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core from that point and enjoys a amused expression when reflecting on the ride.
“You can have a short period thinking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he says. “But then the next minute you realize: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Nick Chester had success at Renault in Alonso's victorious seasons of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the mission of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a works entry backed by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an F1 team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you don’t get the opportunity to transform organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that elapses minds are increasingly concentrated on the impending moment of truth in Melbourne and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect 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,” Graeme Lowdon commented recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation performing the right things on the circuit. After we prove that we’re really credible, then we will focus on forward movement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Drive
In the summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a tandem notable for their vast knowledge in performing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas expressed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a difficult start, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. In my view given this organization, with this team, these personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with staff now at more than 400 and scheduled to attain the target of 600 members quickly. Complementing their current base at Silverstone, the team are in the process of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organization, contrary to the trend in F1 for increased consolidation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester alluded.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said Graeme Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in July. “We are pragmatic, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of project teams all working on various components of the project across a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a process where someone has a problem and they report it to their manager, that manager consults a leader somewhere else, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” says Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to handle things directly. Avoiding management approval for all decisions is much smoother and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this agile approach will be proven in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a significant degree riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
