Approximately a full year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the official approval as Formula One’s newest entrant for 2026. Establishing the organization from the ground up has involved a intense pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac know the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the season finale of the championship to be hosted in the US, with just over three months to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed team in early 2023 soon after it was created, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center ever since and has a amused expression when thinking about the journey.
“You can have a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in under three years,’” he notes. “Then the following moment you think: ‘Well, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Nick Chester had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the challenge of introducing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a works entry backed by the parent company, GM, into F1.
“Building an F1 team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you won't have the possibility to alter cultural approach.”
With every day that elapses minds are more focused on the impending decisive point in Australia and expectations are being managed.
“One must presume that any incoming team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon noted this year and while Chester shared this view he believed the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we arrive and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender executing the right things on the circuit. Once we prove that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate improvement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push
In late summer they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair notable for their priceless expertise in operating at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to finish last. In my view with this structure, with these individuals, this staff, there is every reason that we won't be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in overdrive, with personnel now up to in excess of 400 and planned to attain the goal of 600 members quickly. In addition to their present headquarters at the UK base, the organization are in the phase of completing an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to build the 2029 engine, set for the 2029 season – until then they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, contrary to the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred to.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure akin to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all tackling various components of the mission at a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a process where someone has a problem and they report it to their manager, that manager talks to a leader somewhere else, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” notes the CTO. “Therefore we enable staff to really get on with it. Eliminating hierarchical consent for all decisions is much smoother and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this agile approach will be evaluated in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a significant degree at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta
