A little more than a full year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the green light as the world of Formula One's newest entrant for 2026. Constructing the team from scratch has entailed a frenetic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As the sport arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the season to be held in the US, with around three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic team in March 2023 not long after it was created, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart from that point and has a knowing grin when considering the ride.
“There might be a brief moment thinking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we have built in under three years,’” he says. “And then the next minute you consider: ‘Yeah, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Chester achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's victorious seasons of the mid-2000s and was in control of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has been quite like the task of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Creating an F1 team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you rarely get the opportunity to change cultural approach.”
With every day that goes by focus are more focused on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and expectations are being managed.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal noted recently and while Chester shared this view he thought the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So that we show up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation doing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show progression subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Push
In the summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem notable for their priceless expertise in operating at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas expressed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a difficult start, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to finish last. In my view with this structure, with these individuals, these personnel, there is every reason that we won't be able to get relatively quickly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in top gear, with personnel now at over 400 and scheduled to reach the target of six hundred swiftly. In addition to their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the phase of building an main base at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are constructing the facility to build the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate organisation, different from the movement in the sport for increased consolidation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred.
Space Mission Model
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” said Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we recognize how challenging it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all focusing 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 manager, that manager talks to a supervisor somewhere else, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” says Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to really get on with it. Eliminating managerial sign-off for everything is much smoother and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this nimble approach will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is no little amount at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
