A little more than twelve months previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the go-ahead as Formula One’s latest entrant for 2026. Establishing the team from the ground up has required a hectic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As the sport converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the championship to be hosted in the America, with just over three months to go before they make their debut for the first time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed project in March 2023 soon after it was created, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core ever since and enjoys a amused expression when reflecting on the ride.
“You might get five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Well, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Task
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac name, a factory team sponsored by the owner, GM, into F1.
“Building an F1 team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you rarely get the opportunity to transform team culture.”
With every day that passes focus are more focused on the impending decisive point in the Australian GP and expectations are being handled.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So we show up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender executing the right things on the race track. When we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on improvement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Push
In August they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for the 2026 season, a tandem distinguished for their invaluable experience in operating at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Bottas expressed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. I am confident with this structure, with these individuals, these personnel, it's entirely possible we can't manage to advance swiftly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with employees now reaching in excess of 400 and planned to hit the objective of 600 quickly. Alongside their current base at the UK base, the team are in the midst of completing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to build the power unit, planned for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, different from the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred to.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” remarked Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how challenging it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of project teams all working on distinct elements of the mission across a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a manager somewhere else, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” notes the CTO. “Therefore we enable people to take charge. Moving away from hierarchical consent for all decisions is much smoother and quicker.”
The Future
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be tested in the pressure of racing next season and there is a significant degree riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
