A little more than twelve months in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately given the green light as the world of Formula One's most recent participant for the 2026 season. Building the squad from the ground up has required a hectic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 descends on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be held in the US, with just over 100 days to go before they hit the circuit 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 adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed project in the spring of 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core from that point and enjoys a knowing grin when thinking about the experience.
“There might be five minutes reflecting at what you’ve done and go: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in less than three years,’” he says. “And then the following moment you consider: ‘Yes, we still have a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has truly matched the mission of introducing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a works entry backed by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Establishing an F1 team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you won't have the chance to alter organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that passes focus are increasingly concentrated on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad coming in is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated recently and while Chester shared this view he felt the team had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So we arrive and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender doing the correct procedures on the circuit. When we prove that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on progression from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Push
In late summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a tandem distinguished for their priceless expertise in performing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to finish last. In my view with this setup, with this group, these personnel, there’s no reason why we can't manage to advance swiftly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in top gear, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and intended to attain the target of 600 swiftly. In addition to their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the phase of finishing an headquarters at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to manufacture the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will run power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex structure, at odds with the direction in F1 for greater centralisation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Chester referred to.
Space Mission Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” remarked Graeme Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we understand how tough it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all focusing on different aspects of the program at a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their team leader, that manager talks to a leader somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” says Chester. “So we empower team members to handle things directly. Moving away from hierarchical consent for each action is much smoother and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a considerable amount at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
