Approximately a full year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately given the green light as Formula One’s newest entry for 2026. Constructing the team from the ground up has required a frenetic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on Vegas this race weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be held in the United States, 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 monumental endeavor, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic team in early 2023 shortly after it was established, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart from that point and enjoys a knowing grin when reflecting on the ride.
“You might get five minutes thinking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “But then the next minute you realize: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Chester achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in control of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the all-American Cadillac marque, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, GM, into F1.
“Creating an Formula One team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you don’t get the possibility to alter team culture.”
With every day that elapses thoughts are sharper on the approaching critical moment in Melbourne and targets are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any incoming team entering the sport is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he felt the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So that we arrive and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation doing the correct procedures on the circuit. Once we prove that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Push
In late summer they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a pair remarkable for their vast knowledge in performing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I believe with this setup, with these individuals, these personnel, there’s no reason why we can't manage to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with employees now reaching over 400 and planned to reach the target of 600 members quickly. In addition to their present headquarters at the UK base, the squad are in the process of building an HQ at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are building the facility to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, at odds with the movement in F1 for increased consolidation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Chester referred.
Apollo Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how tough it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the program at a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they report it to their team leader, that supervisor consults a supervisor somewhere else, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” explains Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to handle things directly. Avoiding management approval for each action is far more efficient and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this nimble methodology will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a significant degree at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the young American Colton Herta
