Just over twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately given the green light as Formula One’s most recent entry for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from the ground up has required a intense operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the championship to be held in the United States, with just over a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent operation in early 2023 soon after it was formed, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core from that point and has a amused expression when reflecting on the ride.
“There might be a brief moment thinking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in under three years,’” he notes. “Then the very next instant you think: ‘Well, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Chester had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the task of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a factory team supported by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Establishing an grand prix team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you rarely get the opportunity to change team culture.”
With each passing day that passes minds are more focused on the approaching decisive point in Melbourne and expectations are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we turn up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team executing the correct procedures on the circuit. After we prove that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Effort
In late summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in operating at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the attitude of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I believe with this setup, with this team, these personnel, there’s no reason why we can't manage to get relatively quickly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in top gear, with employees now at in excess of 400 and planned to hit the objective of 600 members rapidly. In addition to their present headquarters at the UK base, the team are in the midst of finishing an main base at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are constructing the plant to build the new engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, different from the direction in Formula One for more centralization, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Chester referred.
NASA Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” remarked the team principal shortly before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how tough it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, rather than the traditional management structure, a flat management structure comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all working on various components of the program in a different facilities.
“When you must follow a process where a challenge emerges and they report it to their supervisor, that supervisor consults a supervisor somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” says Nick Chester. “So we empower people to really get on with it. Moving away from managerial sign-off for everything is much smoother and quicker.”
The Future
The efficacy of this agile strategy will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
