Just over twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the official approval as Formula One’s newest participant for the 2026 season. Building the squad from the ground up has involved a frenetic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be staged in the America, with around 100 days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent project in March 2023 soon after it was formed, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center ever since and enjoys a amused expression when reflecting on the ride.
“There might be five minutes reflecting at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we have built in less than three years,’” Chester states. “But then the following moment you consider: ‘Yeah, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
The CTO had success at the Renault team in Alonso's title-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical development at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the task of introducing the all-American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Establishing an grand prix team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you rarely get the possibility to transform team culture.”
With every day that elapses minds are increasingly concentrated on the looming decisive point in Melbourne and goals are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any new team entering the sport is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal noted this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the organization had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that we’re a proper team executing the right things on the race track. Once we prove that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression after that.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Push
In August they contracted Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a duo notable for their priceless expertise in operating at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of combative optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to finish last. I believe with this setup, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we can't manage to get relatively quickly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in top gear, with staff now at over 400 and scheduled to reach the objective of six hundred quickly. Complementing their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of completing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the center to build the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate organization, at odds with the trend in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester alluded.
NASA Model
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of specialist groups all focusing on different aspects of the project in a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a process where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their team leader, that leader consults a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” notes Nick Chester. “So we empower team members to really get on with it. Moving away from managerial sign-off for everything is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this flexible strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a considerable amount on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
