Approximately one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the go-ahead as F1's most recent participant for 2026. Establishing the squad from scratch has required a frenetic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be held in the United States, with approximately 100 days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed team in March 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart ever since and has a knowing grin when thinking about the journey.
“There might be five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we’ve done in less than three years,’” Chester states. “And then the following moment you consider: ‘Well, we still have a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Chester had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious years of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a factory team backed by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Creating an F1 team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you won't have the chance to change team culture.”
With each day that elapses minds are sharper on the impending moment of truth in Melbourne and goals are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is going to be last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented recently and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the team had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “In order that we turn up and we operate well. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team executing the right things on the track. When we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Drive
In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo notable for their vast knowledge in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the attitude of combative optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be probably a tough opening, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. In my view with this structure, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to the front and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with employees now reaching more than 400 and scheduled to reach the objective of 600 quickly. In addition to their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the phase of completing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are developing the center to build the new engine, set for 2029 – for now they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, contrary to the trend in F1 for more centralization, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred.
NASA Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” remarked the team principal shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we recognize how difficult it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, rather than the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of project teams all working on various components of the program at a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a procedure where an issue arises and they report it to their supervisor, that leader talks to a leader at a different location, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” notes Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to handle things directly. Moving away from managerial sign-off for all decisions is much smoother and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this agile approach will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a considerable amount riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta
