Approximately one year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the official approval as F1's latest entrant for 2026. Constructing the organization from nothing has required a intense pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the final race of the campaign to be held in the America, with around 100 days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are aware there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic project in March 2023 shortly after it was established, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart from that point and has a wry smile when reflecting on the experience.
“You can have five minutes looking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in under three years,’” he notes. “But then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical development at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the challenge of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a factory team supported by the corporate entity, General Motors, into F1.
“Creating an F1 team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you don’t get the possibility to transform team culture.”
With each day that passes minds are increasingly concentrated on the looming decisive point in Melbourne and expectations are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal stated recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the squad had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he says. “So we show up and we operate well. We want to show that this is a professional operation doing the proper actions on the track. After we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate progression from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Effort
In August they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair remarkable for their priceless expertise in competing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a difficult start, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. In my view given this organization, with these individuals, these people, there’s no reason why we won't be able to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in full swing, with staff now at in excess of 400 and planned to reach the objective of 600 members rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at the UK base, the team are in the phase of completing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to manufacture the power unit, set for the 2029 season – for now they will use Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex structure, at odds with the direction in F1 for increased consolidation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester alluded.
NASA Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” said the team principal just before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how challenging it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of project teams all tackling distinct elements of the program at a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a process where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their team leader, that supervisor communicates with a leader at a different location, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” notes Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to handle things directly. Moving away from managerial sign-off for all decisions is far more efficient and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this flexible approach will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a significant degree at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
