A little more than one year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the green light as Formula One’s newest entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from scratch has required a intense work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be hosted in the America, with just over 100 days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are cognizant there will not be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed project in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart since then and gets a amused expression when thinking about the ride.
“You can have a short period thinking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in under three years,’” Chester states. “But then the very next instant you think: ‘Yeah, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Alonso's victorious seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the challenge of introducing the all-American Cadillac marque, a works entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an F1 team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you don’t get the chance to change team culture.”
With each passing day that passes focus are increasingly concentrated on the impending moment of truth in the Australian GP and goals are being managed.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal commented this year and while the CTO echoed this he believed the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we show up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender doing the right things on the track. Once we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate progression from there on.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Effort
In late summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their vast knowledge in performing at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the mood of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. I believe given this organization, with these individuals, these personnel, there’s no reason why we can't manage to progress rapidly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with staff now at over 400 and scheduled to hit the objective of 600 rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of finishing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to manufacture the power unit, planned for 2029 – until then they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organization, different from the movement in F1 for greater centralisation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” stated the team principal shortly before the British GP in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all working on different aspects of the program across a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a protocol where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their supervisor, that manager communicates with a supervisor in another department, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” notes the CTO. “Therefore we enable team members to really get on with it. Moving away from management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and more rapid.”
The Future
The success of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is no little amount at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
