Just over twelve months in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the green light as the world of Formula One's latest entry for 2026. Building the organization from nothing has involved a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the season finale of the championship to be staged in the US, with just over 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic team in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was created, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart ever since and has a amused expression when considering the experience.
“There might be five minutes looking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “But then the following moment you think: ‘Well, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the challenge of introducing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a works entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors, into F1.
“Establishing an grand prix team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you don’t get the opportunity to change team culture.”
With each passing day that elapses thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the looming moment of truth in Melbourne and targets are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while the CTO echoed this he felt the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So we show up and we function efficiently. We want to show that this is a professional operation doing the correct procedures on the track. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression after that.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Drive
In the summer they signed Checo Pérez and Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a tandem distinguished for their vast knowledge in competing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver echoed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we’re not there to finish last. I am confident with this structure, with this group, this staff, there is every reason that we can't manage to get relatively quickly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in full swing, with staff now at more than 400 and scheduled to attain the target of six hundred rapidly. In addition to their current base at the UK base, the organization are in the process of completing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to produce the power unit, set for the 2029 season – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, at odds with the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which the CTO alluded.
NASA Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British GP in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we understand how tough it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a flat management structure akin to that of NASA's, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on various components of the project in a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their manager, that manager talks to a supervisor at a different location, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” notes Chester. “We give authority to people to take charge. Moving away from managerial sign-off for each action is much smoother and more rapid.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is no little amount at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta
