Approximately one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the official approval as the world of Formula One's newest participant for the 2026 season. Building the team from the ground up has involved a hectic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As the sport descends on Las Vegas this weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the last event of the season to be held in the United States, with just over a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the first 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 never-ending task, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic operation in March 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart since then and has a amused expression when thinking about the journey.
“There might be a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Wow, how impressive what the team has created in less than three years,’” Chester states. “But then the following moment you consider: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
The CTO had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious years of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical direction at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the mission of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a works entry sponsored by the parent company, GM, into F1.
“Creating an Formula One team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the chance to alter team culture.”
With each passing day that passes minds are sharper on the looming decisive point in Australia and expectations are being handled.
“You have to assume that any incoming team joining the grid 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 the CTO agreed with this sentiment he felt the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So we show up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender performing the right things on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate progression from there on.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Drive
In late summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their vast knowledge in competing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Bottas expressed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I am confident with this setup, with this team, these personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to the front and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in top gear, with personnel now up to in excess of 400 and planned to hit the target of 600 members quickly. In addition to their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the phase of finishing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are building the center to produce the power unit, set for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex structure, contrary to the direction in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester alluded.
NASA Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” remarked the team principal shortly before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We’re realistic, we understand how tough it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all focusing on distinct elements of the mission at a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a process where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their manager, that supervisor communicates with a manager somewhere else, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” says the CTO. “So we empower people to really get on with it. Moving away from management approval for each action is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this nimble approach will be evaluated in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a considerable amount on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
