Just over a full year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the go-ahead as F1's most recent entry for 2026. Establishing the team from the ground up has involved a intense operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As the sport descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the final race of the season to be hosted in the America, with around three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic operation in March 2023 soon after it was established, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its center ever since and enjoys a amused expression when considering the journey.
“You can have a short period thinking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Incredible, how impressive what the team has created in under three years,’” Chester states. “But then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical development at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has been quite like the mission of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a works entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Building an grand prix team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you rarely get the possibility to alter cultural approach.”
With each day that passes focus are increasingly concentrated on the approaching moment of truth in Melbourne and goals are being handled.
“You have to assume that any new team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented earlier this year and while the CTO shared this view he thought the organization 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 arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation executing the proper actions on the circuit. After we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on improvement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Push
In August they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a duo remarkable for their invaluable experience in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to finish last. I believe with this setup, with these individuals, this staff, there’s no reason why we can't manage to progress rapidly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in full swing, with staff now reaching over 400 and intended to hit the goal of six hundred quickly. In addition to their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of finishing an main base at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – for now they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, contrary to the direction in the sport for increased consolidation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred to.
NASA Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how tough it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, instead of the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of project teams all working on different aspects of the project at a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a process where an issue arises and they raise it up to their supervisor, that supervisor communicates with a supervisor at a different location, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “So we empower team members to take charge. Moving away from hierarchical consent for everything is far more efficient and faster.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this agile methodology will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a significant degree riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
