Approximately one year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the green light as the world of Formula One's latest participant for the 2026 season. Building the squad from nothing has entailed a frenetic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One arrives on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the championship to be held in the United States, with around three months to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing 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 never-ending endeavor, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the nascent project in early 2023 soon after it was formed, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center from that point and has a wry smile when thinking about the journey.
“You might get a brief moment reflecting at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we’ve done in less than three years,’” Chester states. “But then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has truly matched the mission of launching the all-American Cadillac name, a factory team supported by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an Formula One team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you don’t get the chance to transform cultural approach.”
With each day that goes by minds are increasingly concentrated on the impending decisive point in Melbourne and expectations are being handled.
“You have to assume that any incoming team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon noted this year and while Chester shared this view he thought the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So that we arrive and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender performing the proper actions on the track. When we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show forward movement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive
In August they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a duo distinguished for their priceless expertise in performing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, these people, there’s no reason why we won't be able to get relatively quickly to the front and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in overdrive, with employees now reaching over 400 and planned to attain the goal of 600 swiftly. Complementing their current base at the UK base, the team are in the midst of completing an headquarters at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to build the power unit, set for 2029 – for now they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate organisation, contrary to the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which the CTO alluded.
Apollo Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” remarked the team principal just before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, instead of the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all focusing on various components of the project at a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a process where an issue arises and they escalate it to their team leader, that manager communicates with a manager at a different location, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” notes Chester. “We give authority to people to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is far more efficient and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this agile approach will be tested in the pressure of racing next season and there is a considerable amount on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
