Just over one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the official approval as F1's latest participant for the 2026 season. Building the organization from nothing has involved a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport arrives on Vegas this race weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be held in the US, with just over a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural 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 monumental task, they are cognizant there will not be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed project in March 2023 soon after it was formed, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and enjoys a amused expression when considering the journey.
“You might get a short period thinking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Incredible, how impressive what the team has created in less than three years,’” Chester states. “But then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Task
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the iconic American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the corporate entity, GM, into Formula One.
“Creating an Formula One team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you rarely get the opportunity to transform team culture.”
With each day that passes focus are more focused on the impending critical moment in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad joining the grid is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted recently and while Nick Chester echoed this he felt the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he says. “So we show up and we operate well. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender executing the right things on the track. Once we prove that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Push
In August they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a tandem distinguished for their priceless expertise in performing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the mood of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he said. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and we expect probably a tough opening, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to finish last. In my view with this structure, with this group, this staff, there’s no reason why we can't manage to get relatively quickly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To that end recruitment has been in overdrive, with employees now up to more than 400 and scheduled to attain the target of 600 quickly. In addition to their existing facility at the UK base, the squad are in the process of completing an HQ at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are constructing the plant to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a complex organization, contrary to the direction in F1 for more centralization, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred.
NASA Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” remarked Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We’re realistic, we understand how challenging it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of project teams all focusing on various components of the project in a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a procedure where an issue arises and they escalate it to their team leader, that supervisor communicates with a leader in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” explains the CTO. “So we empower people to handle things directly. Avoiding management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this agile strategy will be tested in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a considerable amount riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
