🔗 Share this article

A little more than a full year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last granted the green light as the world of Formula One's newest participant for the 2026 season. Building the squad from nothing has involved a intense pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As Formula One descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.

The Countdown to Melbourne

At the last event of the campaign to be hosted in the United States, with approximately a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are cognizant there will not be adequate time.

The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed project in March 2023 soon after it was created, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center ever since and gets a wry smile when considering the ride.

“You can have a short period looking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we’ve done in under three years,’” he notes. “Then the following moment you consider: ‘Yes, we still have quite a lot to do.’”

A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity

Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical development at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has truly matched the challenge of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a factory team backed by the corporate entity, General Motors, into Formula One.

“Building an grand prix team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the chance to alter team culture.”

With every day that goes by minds are more focused on the approaching decisive point in Melbourne and targets are being set realistically.

“You have to assume that any incoming team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Chester shared this view he felt the squad had a reputation to build as well.

“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we turn up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team performing the correct procedures on the race track. When we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement from there on.”

Driver Lineup and Team Building Drive

In late summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their racers for the 2026 season, a tandem remarkable for their invaluable experience in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the sentiment of combative optimism.

“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he said. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a tough opening, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe given this organization, with these individuals, these personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”

To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with staff now up to over 400 and intended to attain the target of six hundred rapidly. Alongside their existing facility at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of completing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are developing the center to manufacture the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organization, different from the direction in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred.

NASA Inspiration

“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” stated Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we understand how tough it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”

So they have implemented, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the program at a different facilities.

“When you must follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a leader at a different location, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” notes Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to really get on with it. Eliminating hierarchical consent for all decisions is much smoother and more rapid.”

The Future

The success of this agile strategy will be evaluated in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta