A little more than twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the green light as the world of Formula One's most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from nothing has entailed a hectic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As Formula One descends on Vegas this race weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be hosted in the United States, with around 100 days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in March 2023 shortly after it was created, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart from that point and has a knowing grin when considering the journey.
“You might get five minutes looking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he says. “And then the following moment you think: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has quite compared with the mission of bringing the all-American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the owner, GM, into Formula One.
“Establishing an F1 team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you won't have the chance to transform cultural approach.”
With every day that goes by minds are more focused on the looming moment of truth in Melbourne and targets are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted this year and while the CTO shared this view he thought the squad had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we turn up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation performing the correct procedures on the race track. Once we prove that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement after that.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Effort
In late summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for the 2026 season, a tandem notable for their priceless expertise in operating at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a tough opening, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. In my view with this structure, with this team, these people, there is every reason that we can't manage to advance swiftly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To that end hiring has been in overdrive, with employees now at more than 400 and intended to hit the target of 600 members swiftly. Alongside their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the process of completing an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the center to manufacture the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organization, different from the trend in F1 for greater centralisation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Chester referred.
Space Mission Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how difficult it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, instead of the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of project teams all tackling various components of the mission at a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their team leader, that leader talks to a manager at a different location, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” says Chester. “We give authority to people to really get on with it. Avoiding hierarchical consent for everything is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
The Future
The efficacy of this agile approach will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a considerable amount riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta
