Approximately a full year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately given the go-ahead as Formula One’s most recent entry for 2026. Establishing the team from scratch has entailed a frenetic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One converges on Vegas this weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be held in the America, with approximately three months to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic project in March 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart from that point and enjoys a amused expression when reflecting on the journey.
“You might get five minutes reflecting at what you’ve done and go: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yeah, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Chester had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical direction at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has truly matched the task of launching the all-American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Building an grand prix team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you don’t get the opportunity to transform team culture.”
With every day that passes focus are increasingly concentrated on the impending critical moment in Melbourne and expectations are being handled.
“You have to assume that any new team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while Nick Chester echoed this he felt the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So that we turn up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team doing the proper actions on the circuit. When we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive
In late summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a pair distinguished for their priceless expertise in performing at the front in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas expressed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. In my view given this organization, with this group, these people, it's entirely possible we can't manage to progress rapidly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with staff now up to in excess of 400 and planned to attain the target of six hundred rapidly. In addition to their present headquarters at Silverstone, the organization are in the midst of building an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to manufacture the power unit, set for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the direction in F1 for greater centralisation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester alluded.
NASA Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” said the team principal shortly before the British GP in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we recognize how challenging it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, rather than the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all tackling different aspects of the project in a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a process where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their team leader, that leader consults a manager in another department, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says Nick Chester. “We give authority to people to handle things directly. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this nimble methodology will be evaluated in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is no little amount at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta
