Just over a full year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the official approval as Formula One’s latest participant for the 2026 season. Building the team from scratch has involved a hectic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the campaign to be staged in the America, with just over 100 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 come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent team in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was established, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart ever since and has a wry smile when reflecting on the ride.
“You can have a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “But then the following moment you think: ‘Yes, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the mission of launching the all-American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the owner, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Establishing an grand prix team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you won't have the opportunity to transform organizational mindset.”
With each day that goes by thoughts are more focused on the approaching moment of truth in Australia and targets are being managed.
“One must presume that any new team coming in is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he felt the squad had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So we show up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender performing the correct procedures on the circuit. Once we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show forward movement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Push
In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a duo notable for their vast knowledge in operating at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Bottas echoed the mood of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to finish last. In my view given this organization, with this group, these people, it's entirely possible we can't manage to get relatively quickly to the front and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with staff now up to in excess of 400 and planned to reach the target of six hundred quickly. In addition to their present headquarters at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of finishing an main base at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to build the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate organization, contrary to the movement in Formula One for more centralization, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Chester referred.
Space Mission Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” stated the team principal ahead of the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how tough it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a decentralized management similar to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all tackling distinct elements of the project in a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a protocol where an issue arises and they report it to their team leader, that supervisor consults a leader at a different location, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” explains Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to really get on with it. Moving away from managerial sign-off for each action is much smoother and faster.”
The Future
The success of this agile strategy will be proven in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the young American Colton Herta
