Just over a full year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately given the go-ahead as F1's newest entrant for 2026. Establishing the squad from the ground up has involved a intense pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As F1 converges on Las Vegas this weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the final race of the campaign to be hosted in the America, with approximately a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed project in the spring of 2023 not long after it was established, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its center from that point and has a amused expression when reflecting on the journey.
“You might get five minutes reflecting at what you’ve done and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in under three years,’” Chester states. “Then the next minute you consider: ‘Well, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Chester achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a factory team sponsored by the corporate entity, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an Formula One team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you won't have the chance to change cultural approach.”
With each passing day that passes focus are more focused on the looming critical moment in Australia and expectations are being handled.
“One must presume that any new team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he thought the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “In order that we arrive and we function efficiently. We want to show that this is a professional operation doing the right things on the circuit. When we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate progression from there on.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Push
In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in performing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas expressed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be 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 team, these personnel, it's entirely possible we won't be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in overdrive, with personnel now up to over 400 and scheduled to reach the goal of 600 quickly. In addition to their existing facility at Silverstone, the team are in the process of completing an HQ at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are building the center to build the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organisation, different from the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has led to the new cultural approach to which the CTO alluded.
Space Mission Model
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said the team principal ahead of the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we understand how challenging it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Well, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all tackling different aspects of the project in a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a procedure where someone has a problem and they report it to their supervisor, that manager talks to a leader in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “We give authority to people to really get on with it. Eliminating hierarchical consent for everything is far more efficient and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this flexible methodology will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a considerable amount on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
