A little more than a full year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last given the green light as the world of Formula One's latest entrant for 2026. Building the organization from scratch has entailed a frenetic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One descends on Las Vegas this weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the season to be held in the America, with around 100 days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed operation in early 2023 soon after it was formed, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core ever since and enjoys a knowing grin when thinking about the ride.
“You might get a short period thinking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “Then the next minute you think: ‘Yes, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical development at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the challenge of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a works entry sponsored by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an Formula One 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 opportunity to transform organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that goes by minds are sharper on the approaching critical moment in the Australian GP and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team coming in is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon stated recently and while Nick Chester shared this view he felt the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So that we turn up and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation doing the correct procedures on the race track. Once we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on improvement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Push
In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a duo remarkable for their vast knowledge in performing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver echoed the mood of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and we expect almost certainly a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I believe with this setup, with these individuals, this staff, it's entirely possible we can't manage to get relatively quickly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with employees now reaching over 400 and scheduled to hit the goal of 600 rapidly. Alongside their existing facility at Silverstone, the squad are in the process of completing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are developing the center to manufacture the new engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate organisation, different from the direction in F1 for increased consolidation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred.
NASA Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” stated the team principal shortly before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we know how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all tackling various components of the project across a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor consults a supervisor at a different location, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” says Nick Chester. “We give authority to people to handle things directly. Eliminating hierarchical consent for all decisions is much smoother and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this agile methodology will be proven in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a significant degree on the line for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
