A little more than a full year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the green light as F1's latest participant for 2026. Constructing the organization from the ground up has required a frenetic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport descends on Vegas this weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the season finale of the championship to be hosted in the America, with approximately three months to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent project in early 2023 soon after it was created, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and gets a wry smile when reflecting on the ride.
“You might get five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in under three years,’” he says. “But then the very next instant you think: ‘Yes, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the mission of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the corporate entity, GM, into F1.
“Creating an grand prix team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you don’t get the opportunity to alter team culture.”
With each day that elapses thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the approaching decisive point in the Australian GP and expectations are being handled.
“You have to assume 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,” the team principal stated recently and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So we arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation performing the right things on the race track. Once we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we will focus on progression from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Push
In the summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a tandem notable for their invaluable experience in performing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to finish last. I am confident with this structure, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to the front and taste victory.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in full swing, with employees now reaching over 400 and scheduled to attain the goal of 600 members rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the midst of finishing an HQ at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are developing the facility to build the power unit, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex structure, contrary to the movement in F1 for more centralization, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in July. “We are pragmatic, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of NASA's, where there were a range of project teams all working on various components of the program in a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a procedure where a challenge emerges and they report it to their team leader, that leader consults a manager in another department, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” explains Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to handle things directly. Moving away from managerial sign-off for all decisions is much smoother and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this nimble methodology will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a considerable amount on the line for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
