Just over one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's most recent entry for the 2026 season. Building the team from scratch has involved a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be hosted in the United States, with approximately a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed project in early 2023 shortly after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart since then and has a amused expression when considering the ride.
“You can have a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “But then the following moment you realize: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Task
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the task of launching the all-American Cadillac name, a factory team sponsored by the parent company, GM, into Formula One.
“Creating an F1 team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility 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 every day that elapses focus are sharper on the looming decisive point in Melbourne and targets are being set realistically.
“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 feat in itself,” the team principal stated earlier this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he felt the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So that we show up and we operate well. We want to show that we are a serious contender performing the correct procedures on the race track. Once we prove that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate improvement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Effort
In the summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a tandem notable for their priceless expertise in performing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas reflected the attitude of determined optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to finish last. I believe with this setup, with these individuals, this staff, there’s no reason why we can't manage to advance swiftly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To that end hiring has been in overdrive, with employees now up to in excess of 400 and planned to attain the goal of 600 members rapidly. Alongside their present headquarters at the UK base, the organization are in the process of building an HQ at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to produce the new engine, set for the 2029 season – for now they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organization, contrary to the movement in the sport for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred to.
Space Mission Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” remarked the team principal just before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We’re realistic, we understand how tough it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all working on various components of the project across a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a manager at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” notes the CTO. “We give authority to people to take charge. Eliminating management approval for each action is so much cleaner and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be proven in the heat of competition next season and there is a considerable amount at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
