A little more than one year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the green light as the world of Formula One's newest participant for 2026. Constructing the organization from nothing has entailed a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As the sport converges on Las Vegas this weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be held in the America, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent team in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was established, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center ever since and has a wry smile when thinking about the experience.
“You might get a short period looking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you consider: ‘Well, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Chester had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the mission of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Establishing an F1 team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you rarely get the chance to transform organizational mindset.”
With every day that passes thoughts are more focused on the impending decisive point in the Australian GP and goals are being handled.
“One must presume that any new team coming in is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted this year and while the CTO echoed this he believed the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we turn up and we function efficiently. We want to show that we’re a proper team executing the right things on the track. Once we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Effort
In August they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their priceless expertise in performing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I believe with this setup, with these individuals, these people, there is every reason that we won't be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in overdrive, with staff now at more than 400 and planned to hit the objective of 600 swiftly. Alongside their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the midst of completing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the center to build the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – until then they will run power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, different from the direction in F1 for increased consolidation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in July. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how difficult it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, rather than the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of specialist groups all focusing on different aspects of the mission across a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a protocol where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their manager, that supervisor consults a leader in another department, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” says Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable people to handle things directly. Eliminating hierarchical consent for all decisions is so much cleaner and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this flexible strategy will be evaluated in the heat of competition next season and there is no little amount at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
