Approximately one year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the green light as the world of Formula One's latest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from scratch has entailed a frenetic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One descends on Las Vegas this weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be hosted in the US, with approximately three months to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia 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 cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed team in March 2023 shortly after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its center since then and enjoys a amused expression when thinking about the journey.
“There might be five minutes thinking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he says. “Then the very next instant you consider: ‘Well, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
Chester had success at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has been quite like the challenge of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a works entry backed by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Establishing an grand prix team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you don’t get the possibility to change organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that elapses minds are more focused on the impending moment of truth in the Australian GP and targets are being handled.
“One must presume that any incoming team joining the grid is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon noted this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So that we show up and we function efficiently. We want to show that we are a serious contender doing the correct procedures on the circuit. After we prove that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on improvement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Push
In the summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for the 2026 season, a tandem remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We have a massive task to do, and it’s going to be probably a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to stay at the back. In my view with this structure, with these individuals, these personnel, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with employees now up to in excess of 400 and planned to hit the goal of 600 rapidly. Complementing their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the midst of building an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to build the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex structure, contrary to the direction in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which the CTO alluded.
Apollo Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” remarked the team principal ahead of the Silverstone race in July. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how challenging it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of project teams all working on different aspects of the mission at a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a procedure where an issue arises and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a leader somewhere else, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” explains Chester. “So we empower team members to handle things directly. Moving away from managerial sign-off for all decisions is so much cleaner and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this flexible approach will be proven in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a considerable amount on the line for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
