Just over a full year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the official approval as Formula One’s latest entrant for 2026. Building the squad from nothing has required a hectic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac are aware time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be hosted in the United States, with approximately 100 days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent project in March 2023 not long after it was created, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart ever since and gets a knowing grin when considering the journey.
“There might be a short period looking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “And then the next minute you realize: ‘Yeah, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in charge of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a factory team supported by the parent company, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an F1 team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you rarely get the opportunity to change cultural approach.”
With each passing day that goes by focus are increasingly concentrated on the looming decisive point in Melbourne and goals 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,” Graeme Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Chester shared this view he believed the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team doing the proper actions on the circuit. After we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on progression after that.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Effort
In August they contracted Checo Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a tandem distinguished for their priceless expertise in performing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the mood of combative optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and we expect probably a tough opening, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. In my view with this setup, with this group, these people, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with staff now up to more than 400 and planned to hit the objective of six hundred rapidly. Alongside 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 plant in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to build the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organization, contrary to the direction in F1 for greater centralisation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester alluded.
NASA Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in July. “We are pragmatic, we know how difficult it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the mission in a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a process where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their manager, that manager consults a leader somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” says the CTO. “Therefore we enable team members to really get on with it. Moving away from hierarchical consent for everything is far more efficient and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be proven in the heat of competition next season and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
