Just over a full year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the go-ahead as F1's newest entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from nothing has required a hectic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the final race of the championship to be staged in the United States, with around a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed project in March 2023 shortly after it was established, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and gets a amused expression when considering the experience.
“You can have a short period looking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in under three years,’” he says. “But then the following moment you consider: ‘Well, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Nick Chester had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the task of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a factory team sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an grand prix team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you rarely get the chance to alter cultural approach.”
With each day that goes by minds are increasingly concentrated on the looming critical moment in the Australian GP and targets are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any incoming team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he felt the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we turn up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender doing the proper actions on the race track. After we prove that our credentials are solid, then we want to show progression from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Push
In the summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo notable for their priceless expertise in performing at the front in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver echoed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I believe with this setup, with this group, this staff, it's entirely possible we won't be able to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in full swing, with employees now reaching over 400 and intended to hit the goal of six hundred swiftly. In addition to their existing facility at Silverstone, the team are in the phase of completing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are constructing the plant to build the new engine, planned for the 2029 season – until then they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex structure, different from the direction in F1 for more centralization, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Chester alluded.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” said Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We’re realistic, we understand how tough it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, instead of the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all focusing on various components of the program at a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a protocol where an issue arises and they raise it up to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a leader somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” says Chester. “So we empower staff to really get on with it. Avoiding hierarchical consent for all decisions is much smoother and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this nimble approach will be proven in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
