A little more than twelve months in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from nothing has involved a hectic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 converges on Vegas this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the season to be held in the US, with approximately 100 days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are aware there will not be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in the spring of 2023 soon after it was formed, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart ever since and has a knowing grin when thinking about the ride.
“You can have five minutes looking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what the team has created in less than three years,’” he says. “Then the next minute you think: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Nick Chester had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the mission of launching the iconic American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the owner, GM, into Formula One.
“Building an F1 team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you won't have the possibility to change cultural approach.”
With each passing day that passes minds are increasingly concentrated on the looming critical moment in the Australian GP and expectations are being managed.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is going to be last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal stated recently and while Nick Chester echoed this he felt the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So we show up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender doing the correct procedures on the track. After we prove that we’re really credible, then we will focus on forward movement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive
In August they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a duo remarkable for their priceless expertise in performing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver reflected the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be probably a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to finish last. I am confident given this organization, with this group, this staff, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in full swing, with employees now reaching more than 400 and planned to hit the target of 600 members rapidly. Alongside their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the process of finishing an HQ at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are building the plant to manufacture the 2029 engine, set for the 2029 season – until then they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex structure, at odds with the movement in the sport for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred.
Apollo Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” stated Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we understand how tough it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all focusing on different aspects of the program in a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a protocol where an issue arises and they raise it up to their team leader, that manager communicates with a manager somewhere else, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” explains Chester. “So we empower team members to handle things directly. Eliminating management approval for everything is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this agile strategy will be tested in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a significant degree riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
