Just over a full year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last given the green light as Formula One’s most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Building the squad from the ground up has entailed a intense work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the campaign to be hosted in the US, with around three months to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic project in March 2023 not long after it was created, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core since then and has a knowing grin when considering the ride.
“There might be five minutes reflecting at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we have built in under three years,’” he notes. “Then the next minute you realize: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the mission of launching the all-American Cadillac name, a factory team supported by the owner, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Building an grand prix team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you don’t get the opportunity to alter team culture.”
With each day that passes focus are increasingly concentrated on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and goals are being handled.
“One must presume that any new team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon stated this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the team had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we show up and we operate well. We want to show that we are a serious contender executing the proper actions on the circuit. After we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we want to show improvement after that.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Push
In August they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a duo distinguished for their vast knowledge in performing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the mood of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We have a massive task to do, and we expect most likely a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. In my view with this setup, with this team, these personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in top gear, with employees now up to over 400 and scheduled to attain the goal of 600 members swiftly. Alongside their current base at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of building an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are developing the center to build the power unit, set for 2029 – until then they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a intricate organisation, different from the movement in F1 for more centralization, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Chester alluded.
NASA Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” remarked Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how difficult it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all tackling distinct elements of the mission at a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their team leader, that supervisor consults a leader at a different location, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” explains the CTO. “We give authority to team members to take charge. Moving away from managerial sign-off for everything is much smoother and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this agile strategy will be evaluated in the pressure of racing next season and there is a considerable amount at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
