Approximately one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately given the official approval as Formula One’s most recent entry for 2026. Constructing the squad from the ground up has entailed a hectic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport descends on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac understand time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the championship to be hosted in the US, with approximately 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing 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 sisyphean task, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the nascent project in early 2023 soon after it was established, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart from that point and enjoys a wry smile when thinking about the experience.
“You might get five minutes looking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what the team has created in less than three years,’” he says. “Then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Creating an grand prix team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you won't have the opportunity to transform cultural approach.”
With every day that elapses focus are more focused on the impending decisive point in Australia and targets are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team joining the grid is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon stated recently and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So that we arrive and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation executing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we prove that we’re really credible, then we want to show improvement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Effort
In August they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a duo notable for their invaluable experience in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Bottas expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to finish last. In my view with this structure, with these individuals, these personnel, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”
To that end hiring has been in full swing, with employees now reaching more than 400 and planned to attain the objective of six hundred swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at Silverstone, the team are in the midst of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate organization, different from the movement in F1 for greater centralisation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which the CTO alluded.
NASA Blueprint
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” said Lowdon ahead of the British GP in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we understand how difficult it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, instead of the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all tackling distinct elements of the program at a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a process where an issue arises and they escalate it to their manager, that leader consults a leader somewhere else, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” notes Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to really get on with it. Moving away from management approval for each action is far more efficient and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this flexible methodology will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a significant degree riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
