Approximately a full year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the official approval as the world of Formula One's most recent participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from scratch has required a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As Formula One descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the championship to be hosted in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic project in March 2023 soon after it was created, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart ever since and enjoys a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“You can have five minutes thinking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in under three years,’” he notes. “Then the next minute you consider: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in charge of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the challenge of launching the iconic American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the parent company, GM, into Formula One.
“Building an grand prix team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you don’t get the chance to transform team culture.”
With every day that goes by focus are increasingly concentrated on the looming moment of truth in the Australian GP and goals are being managed.
“You have to assume that any incoming team joining the grid is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal stated earlier this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he thought the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So that we turn up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender performing the right things on the race track. When we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Effort
In August they contracted Sergio Perez and Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a duo distinguished for their priceless expertise in performing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. In my view with this structure, with this team, these personnel, there is every reason that we can't manage to progress rapidly to the front and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in full swing, with employees now reaching over 400 and planned to reach the objective of 600 members quickly. Complementing their present headquarters at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of completing an main base at Fishers in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the center to build the new engine, set for the 2029 season – for now they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated structure, at odds with the movement in the sport for more centralization, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred.
NASA Inspiration
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Lowdon ahead of the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of project teams all working on different aspects of the project in a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where an issue arises and they raise it up to their team leader, that leader communicates with a leader at a different location, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” notes Nick Chester. “We give authority to people to handle things directly. Moving away from managerial sign-off for everything is far more efficient and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this flexible approach will be tested in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
