Just over twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the green light as Formula One’s newest participant for the 2026 season. Building the organization from nothing has required a hectic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac are aware time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be staged in the US, with around 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic team in early 2023 shortly after it was established, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center since then and has a knowing grin when considering the journey.
“You can have a short period reflecting at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Amazing, how impressive what the team has created in less than three years,’” he notes. “Then the next minute you think: ‘Yes, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical development at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the task of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a works entry sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an F1 team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you rarely get the opportunity to transform team culture.”
With each day that goes by thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the looming decisive point in Australia and expectations are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any incoming team coming in is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he believed the team had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So that we arrive and we operate well. We want to show that we’re a proper team performing the right things on the circuit. Once we prove that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on improvement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Push
In August they recruited Checo Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in competing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver echoed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and we expect almost certainly 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 this group, this staff, there’s no reason why we won't be able to advance swiftly to the front and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in overdrive, with employees now up to more than 400 and intended to hit the target of 600 members quickly. Alongside their present headquarters at Silverstone, the team are in the process of building an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to manufacture the power unit, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organisation, contrary to the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred to.
NASA Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in July. “We are pragmatic, we understand how challenging it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of specialist groups all focusing on different aspects of the program at a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a procedure where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their supervisor, that leader communicates with a manager at a different location, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” explains the CTO. “So we empower staff to really get on with it. Moving away from hierarchical consent for everything is much smoother and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be proven in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a significant degree riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
