🔗 Share this article

Just over one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately given the official approval as Formula One’s most recent entry for the 2026 season. Building the organization from nothing has involved a hectic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.

The Countdown to Melbourne

At the season finale of the campaign to be staged in the United States, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.

The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent project in the spring of 2023 soon after it was formed, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its core ever since and has a knowing grin when reflecting on the experience.

“You can have a brief moment thinking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in less than three years,’” he says. “Then the next minute you think: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”

An Unprecedented Opportunity

Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the mission of launching the iconic American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the owner, GM, into F1.

“Establishing an grand prix team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you won't have the chance to transform cultural approach.”

With each day that goes by focus are increasingly concentrated on the looming decisive point in Australia and goals are being set realistically.

“It's reasonable to expect that any new team coming in is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted this year and while the CTO shared this view he felt the organization had a statement to make as well.

“Our primary goal we want to show is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So we arrive and we operate well. We want to show that this is a professional operation executing the proper actions on the circuit. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we will focus on progression subsequently.”

Driver Lineup and Team Building Push

In the summer they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their vast knowledge in competing at the front in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of combative optimism.

“Of course, we’re realistic,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it’s going to be probably a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I believe given this organization, with this group, these people, it's entirely possible we won't be able to advance swiftly to the front and taste victory.”

To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with employees now up to more than 400 and scheduled to attain the objective of 600 quickly. Alongside their existing facility at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of building an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to build the new engine, planned for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the movement in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred to.

NASA Blueprint

“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” remarked the team principal just before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”

So they have embraced, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of project teams all tackling distinct elements of the program at a multiple sites.

“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their manager, that supervisor talks to a manager at a different location, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” explains the CTO. “Therefore we enable team members to handle things directly. Moving away from management approval for everything is much smoother and faster.”

What Lies Ahead

The success of this flexible strategy will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is no little amount at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta