Just over one year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's latest participant for 2026. Constructing the team from scratch has entailed a intense pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One arrives on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the season to be hosted in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed project in the spring of 2023 soon after it was established, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core ever since and has a wry smile when considering the ride.
“You can have a brief moment reflecting at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he says. “But then the following moment you realize: ‘Well, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical development at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has truly matched the task of introducing the all-American Cadillac name, a factory team backed by the parent company, GM, into F1.
“Establishing an F1 team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you won't have the chance to alter cultural approach.”
With each day that goes by minds are more focused on the impending decisive point in the Australian GP and goals are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team entering the sport is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal stated recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the team had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he says. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team executing the proper actions on the track. When we prove that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on progression subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Drive
In August they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a pair distinguished for their priceless expertise in operating at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver echoed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and we expect most likely a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I believe given this organization, with this group, these personnel, there is every reason that we won't be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in full swing, with staff now at more than 400 and scheduled to reach the target of 600 members quickly. Complementing their existing facility at Silverstone, the organization are in the process of building an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to produce the new engine, planned for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, different from the trend in F1 for greater centralisation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester alluded.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” remarked Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Well, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of specialist groups all focusing on distinct elements of the mission at a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a procedure where a challenge emerges and they report it to their team leader, that supervisor communicates with a supervisor somewhere else, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” explains the CTO. “So we empower staff to really get on with it. Avoiding management approval for everything is far more efficient and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this agile approach will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is no little amount riding on this for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
