Just over a full year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the official approval as Formula One’s newest participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from scratch has required a intense pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport descends on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the campaign to be held in the US, with around three months to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent team in March 2023 shortly after it was created, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center from that point and has a wry smile when thinking about the ride.
“You can have a short period reflecting at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he says. “And then the very next instant you realize: ‘Well, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Task
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical development at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the challenge of introducing the all-American Cadillac marque, a factory team backed by the corporate entity, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Creating an grand prix team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you don’t get the possibility to transform organizational mindset.”
With every day that elapses thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the impending moment of truth in Australia and expectations are being handled.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is going to be last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “In order that we turn up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the race track. After we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we want to show forward movement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Drive
In the summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for the 2026 season, a duo notable for their vast knowledge in performing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We have a massive task to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a difficult start, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to finish last. I am confident with this setup, with this team, these people, there’s no reason why we can't manage to progress rapidly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in full swing, with staff now reaching more than 400 and planned to reach the objective of 600 members quickly. Alongside their current base at the UK base, the team are in the phase of building an main base at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to produce the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, at odds with the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred to.
Apollo Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” remarked Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we understand how challenging it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of project teams all working on different aspects of the project across a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a protocol where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their manager, that supervisor talks to a supervisor at a different location, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” notes the CTO. “Therefore we enable people to handle things directly. Eliminating managerial sign-off for everything is so much cleaner and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be proven in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is no little amount at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta
