Approximately a full year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the official approval as Formula One’s latest entry for the 2026 season. Building the team from the ground up has entailed a frenetic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One arrives on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the last event of the season to be staged in the America, with just over 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural 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 task, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed operation in the spring of 2023 soon after it was created, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart from that point and enjoys a wry smile when considering the journey.
“There might be a short period reflecting at what you’ve done and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what the team has created in less than three years,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Chester had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical development at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the challenge of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a factory team sponsored by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Creating an Formula One team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you rarely get the chance to alter team culture.”
With every day that passes minds are increasingly concentrated on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and expectations are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team joining the grid is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated recently and while Chester echoed this he thought the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he says. “So we arrive and we operate well. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team doing the correct procedures on the circuit. Once we prove that our credentials are solid, then we want to show improvement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Push
In the summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo remarkable for their invaluable experience in operating at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a difficult start, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to finish last. I am confident given this organization, with this team, this staff, there’s no reason why we won't be able to advance swiftly to the front and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with staff now reaching over 400 and scheduled to attain the goal of six hundred quickly. Alongside their existing facility at Silverstone, the team are in the phase of finishing an headquarters at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are building the facility to build the 2029 engine, set for the 2029 season – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex organization, contrary to the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester alluded.
Space Mission Model
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” remarked Lowdon shortly before the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we recognize how challenging it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of project teams all tackling distinct elements of the program at a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their supervisor, that leader communicates with a manager in another department, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” notes Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to take charge. Moving away from hierarchical consent for all decisions is so much cleaner and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this agile strategy will be tested in the heat of competition next season and there is a significant degree riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
