Approximately one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's most recent participant for 2026. Building the squad from nothing has required a hectic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As the sport arrives on Vegas this weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be held in the US, with around 100 days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed operation in March 2023 soon after it was formed, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart ever since and has a wry smile when thinking about the experience.
“There might be a brief moment thinking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “But then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has truly matched the task of bringing the iconic American Cadillac name, a works entry backed by the parent company, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an Formula One team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you won't have the opportunity to transform team culture.”
With each day that passes thoughts are more focused on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any incoming team coming in is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal noted earlier this year and while Chester echoed this he thought the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So we turn up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team performing the proper actions on the race track. When we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we want to show improvement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Push
In August they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for the 2026 season, a pair distinguished for their priceless expertise in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it’s going to be probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to finish last. I believe given this organization, with these individuals, these personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with staff now at in excess of 400 and planned to reach the objective of six hundred quickly. In addition to their existing facility at Silverstone, the team are in the midst of building an HQ at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are constructing the center to manufacture the power unit, scheduled for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organization, contrary to the trend in F1 for more centralization, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” said Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how challenging it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, rather than the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all tackling various components of the project at a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their team leader, that supervisor communicates with a manager at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” explains the CTO. “Therefore we enable team members to handle things directly. Moving away from managerial sign-off for all decisions is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be tested in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a considerable amount on the line for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
