Approximately one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately given the green light as F1's most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Building the team from scratch has required a hectic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be held in the America, with around a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed operation in March 2023 soon after it was created, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center from that point and gets a knowing grin when considering the journey.
“You might get a brief moment thinking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Wow, how impressive what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you consider: ‘Well, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical development at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the challenge of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a factory team supported by the corporate entity, GM, into Formula One.
“Creating an grand prix team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you won't have the chance to change organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that goes by thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the impending moment of truth in Australia and targets are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad joining the grid is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon noted earlier this year and while the CTO echoed this he thought the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So we arrive and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender executing the right things on the track. After we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on progression after that.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Push
In the summer they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a pair remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver echoed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We face a mountain of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I believe with this structure, with this team, these personnel, it's entirely possible we won't be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with staff now reaching in excess of 400 and planned to attain the objective of 600 swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at Silverstone, the organization are in the process of finishing an main base at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are developing the center to manufacture the power unit, set for 2029 – for now they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organisation, different from the direction in F1 for more centralization, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred to.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” said Graeme Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we know how tough it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, instead of the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all working on distinct elements of the program across a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a process where an issue arises and they raise it up to their team leader, that manager talks to a supervisor in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” notes Chester. “We give authority to team members to take charge. Eliminating hierarchical consent for each action is much smoother and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be proven in the heat of competition next season and there is a considerable amount on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
