Approximately one year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the official approval as F1's most recent entry for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from scratch has involved a frenetic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on Vegas this weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be hosted in the United States, with around 100 days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic operation in early 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart ever since and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the journey.
“You can have a short period thinking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “But then the next minute you think: ‘Well, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's victorious years of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the challenge of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a works entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Creating an F1 team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you won't have the chance to transform team culture.”
With every day that goes by thoughts are more focused on the impending decisive point in Australia and targets are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad joining the grid is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal stated recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the organization had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So we show up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team executing the correct procedures on the circuit. After we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Push
In late summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a pair distinguished for their invaluable experience in competing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the mood of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and we expect most likely a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I believe given this organization, with this team, these people, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to the front and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in full swing, with employees now reaching over 400 and intended to reach the objective of 600 members swiftly. In addition to their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the midst of completing an headquarters at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are constructing the facility to produce the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate organization, different from the trend in F1 for greater centralisation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred.
NASA Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” remarked Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British GP in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how challenging it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, rather than the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all working on different aspects of the program across a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that manager talks to a manager at a different location, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says Chester. “So we empower people to take charge. Moving away from management approval for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
The Future
The success of this flexible approach will be tested in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is no little amount riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
