Just over one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the green light as F1's latest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from the ground up has entailed a frenetic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac are aware time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the campaign to be hosted in the United States, with around a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are aware there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent operation in March 2023 soon after it was formed, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its core since then and enjoys a wry smile when reflecting on the experience.
“There might be a short period looking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “But then the next minute you realize: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Nick Chester had success at Renault in Alonso's victorious years of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the task of bringing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Establishing an Formula One team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you rarely get the chance to alter cultural approach.”
With every day that passes minds are sharper on the approaching critical moment in Melbourne and expectations are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated recently and while the CTO echoed this he thought the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we arrive and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team performing the proper actions on the track. When we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we want to show improvement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Effort
In the summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a duo notable for their invaluable experience in operating at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver expressed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I am confident with this setup, with this team, these personnel, there’s no reason why we won't be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in overdrive, with employees now at more than 400 and scheduled to reach the objective of 600 members swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of finishing an HQ at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are developing the center to manufacture the power unit, set for the 2029 season – for now they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex structure, at odds with the trend in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred to.
Space Mission Model
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said Graeme Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the project across a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a process where someone has a problem and they report it to their manager, that supervisor communicates with a manager at a different location, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” explains the CTO. “We give authority to staff to take charge. Moving away from management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a considerable amount riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
