Just over a full year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the official approval as Formula One’s latest entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from scratch has entailed a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be held in the United States, with approximately three months to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed team in early 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart from that point and gets a wry smile when thinking about the experience.
“You can have five minutes looking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in under three years,’” he notes. “And then the next minute you think: ‘Well, there is still a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Alonso's title-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in control of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has been quite like the task of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors, into F1.
“Building an Formula One team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you don’t get the chance to transform organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that goes by focus are increasingly concentrated on the looming critical moment in the Australian GP and targets are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any new team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal noted earlier this year and while the CTO echoed this he felt the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So that we turn up and we perform competently. We want to show that we’re a proper team executing the correct procedures on the track. Once we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on improvement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Drive
In August they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a pair notable for their vast knowledge in competing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and we expect probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to finish last. In my view given this organization, with these individuals, these personnel, there’s no reason why we won't be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in overdrive, with employees now reaching over 400 and intended to hit the goal of 600 rapidly. Complementing their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the phase of building an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are constructing the center to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organization, at odds with the trend in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Chester alluded.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” stated Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how difficult it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a decentralized management akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of specialist groups all focusing on various components of the project across a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their team leader, that manager consults a leader at a different location, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” notes Chester. “We give authority to team members to take charge. Eliminating managerial sign-off for all decisions is much smoother and faster.”
The Future
The success of this flexible methodology will be evaluated in the heat of competition next season and there is a considerable amount on the line for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta
