A little more than one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the green light as F1's latest participant for the 2026 season. Building the team from the ground up has entailed a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the campaign to be hosted in the United States, with just over a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed project in early 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core ever since and enjoys a wry smile when thinking about the experience.
“You can have five minutes looking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what the team has created in less than three years,’” he notes. “But then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yes, there is still a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical direction at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the challenge of bringing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance 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 Australia and targets are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team entering the sport is going to be last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while Nick Chester echoed this he felt the squad had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So that we arrive and we operate well. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender performing the correct procedures on the track. After we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on improvement after that.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Push
In August they signed Checo Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a duo notable for their priceless expertise in competing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the attitude of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a tough opening, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I believe given this organization, with these individuals, this staff, it's entirely possible we won't be able to advance swiftly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with staff now up to over 400 and intended to reach the objective of six hundred rapidly. Complementing their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of building an headquarters at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are constructing the center to produce the power unit, set for 2029 – for now they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organisation, contrary to the direction in Formula One for more centralization, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred.
NASA Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” stated Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in July. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how difficult it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, instead of the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management similar to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of project teams all working on various components of the mission in a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their supervisor, that leader consults a supervisor at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” explains Chester. “So we empower staff to really get on with it. Moving away from hierarchical consent for each action is so much cleaner and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this flexible strategy will be tested in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a significant degree at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the young American Colton Herta
