Approximately one year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last given the official approval as Formula One’s most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from scratch has entailed a hectic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be staged in the US, with approximately a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are cognizant there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed operation in early 2023 shortly after it was created, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center from that point and gets a knowing grin when considering the ride.
“You might get five minutes reflecting at what you’ve done and go: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in under three years,’” he notes. “Then the following moment you consider: ‘Yeah, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has truly matched the task of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, GM, into Formula One.
“Creating an F1 team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you don’t get the opportunity to change cultural approach.”
With each day that elapses minds are increasingly concentrated on the impending decisive point in the Australian GP and expectations are being handled.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation performing the correct procedures on the race track. Once we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate progression after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Effort
In August they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their racers for the 2026 season, a tandem remarkable for their invaluable experience in operating at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it will likely be probably a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I am confident given this organization, with these individuals, these people, there’s no reason why we can't manage to get relatively quickly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To that end recruitment has been in overdrive, with employees now up to over 400 and planned to attain the objective of six hundred swiftly. Complementing their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the process of completing an headquarters at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are constructing the plant to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex organisation, contrary to the trend in F1 for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred to.
NASA Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said the team principal ahead of the Silverstone race in the summer. “We’re realistic, we recognize how difficult it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, rather than the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the mission at a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a process where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that leader consults a manager at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” notes Nick Chester. “We give authority to team members to take charge. Avoiding management approval for everything is much smoother and faster.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this flexible strategy will be tested in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a significant degree on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
