Approximately twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately given the go-ahead as F1's latest participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from scratch has involved a hectic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the season finale of the season to be staged in the United States, with approximately 100 days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed operation in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its core from that point and has a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“You might get five minutes reflecting at what you’ve done and say: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “But then the very next instant you think: ‘Yes, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Nick Chester had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the task of bringing the all-American Cadillac marque, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, GM, into F1.
“Creating an Formula One team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you won't have the chance to change organizational mindset.”
With every day that elapses minds are more focused on the approaching decisive point in Australia and expectations are being set realistically.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal commented earlier this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the squad had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So that we turn up and we operate well. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender doing the proper actions on the track. After we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show improvement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Effort
In the summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair distinguished for their priceless expertise in competing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the mood of determined optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be probably a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I believe with this setup, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in top gear, with employees now at in excess of 400 and scheduled to reach the objective of 600 members quickly. Alongside their present headquarters at Silverstone, the squad are in the midst of building an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the center to build the power unit, planned for 2029 – until then they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the trend in F1 for increased consolidation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred to.
Apollo Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” stated Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how tough it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, instead of the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of project teams all working on various components of the mission in a different facilities.
“When you must follow a process where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their team leader, that supervisor communicates with a supervisor in another department, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” explains Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to really get on with it. Avoiding hierarchical consent for each action is much smoother and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this flexible methodology will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a considerable amount riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta
