Approximately a full year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the go-ahead as F1's latest entry for 2026. Constructing the team from the ground up has entailed a intense pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be held in the America, with just over 100 days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic project in early 2023 soon after it was established, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart from that point and has a amused expression when considering the ride.
“There might be a brief moment thinking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Incredible, how impressive what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Yeah, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious years of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical direction at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the challenge of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a factory team backed by the corporate entity, General Motors, into F1.
“Creating an Formula One team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you don’t get the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”
With each passing day that goes by focus are sharper on the impending decisive point in Australia and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team entering the sport is going to be last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted this year and while the CTO echoed this he thought the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team doing the correct procedures on the track. When we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we want to show forward movement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Effort
In late summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a duo distinguished for their priceless expertise in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I believe with this structure, with this group, these personnel, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with employees now up to more than 400 and planned to hit the goal of 600 members rapidly. Complementing their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the process of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are developing the center to manufacture the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex organisation, at odds with the movement in F1 for more centralization, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Chester referred.
Space Mission Model
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” stated Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We’re realistic, we recognize how difficult it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, rather than the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all focusing on distinct elements of the project across a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a process where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their manager, that leader consults a leader in another department, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” notes the CTO. “We give authority to staff to really get on with it. Avoiding management approval for everything is much smoother and faster.”
The Future
The success of this flexible approach will be evaluated in the pressure of racing next season and there is a considerable amount at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
