Just over one year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately given the green light as F1's newest entry for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from scratch has entailed a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As Formula One arrives on Vegas this weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be hosted in the America, with approximately three months to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent operation in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart ever since and has a wry smile when reflecting on the ride.
“You can have five minutes thinking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what the team has created in less than three years,’” he says. “But then the following moment you consider: ‘Well, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical development at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the task of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a factory team backed by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the possibility to change organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that passes focus are more focused on the impending moment of truth in the Australian GP and goals are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented this year and while Chester echoed this he thought the team had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he says. “In order that we show up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender executing the right things on the track. After we prove that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate improvement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push
In August they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for the 2026 season, a pair remarkable for their invaluable experience in operating at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver expressed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to finish last. I believe given this organization, with this group, these personnel, it's entirely possible we can't manage to advance swiftly to the front and taste victory.”
To that end recruitment has been in top gear, with employees now at in excess of 400 and planned to attain the objective of 600 rapidly. Alongside their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the phase of finishing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are building the facility to produce the new engine, planned for the 2029 season – until then they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a intricate organization, different from the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred to.
Space Mission Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” remarked Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how tough it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, rather than the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all tackling various components of the program in a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where an issue arises and they escalate it to their manager, that manager communicates with a leader at a different location, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” notes Nick Chester. “So we empower team members to really get on with it. Moving away from management approval for each action is much smoother and more rapid.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this agile methodology will be proven in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a considerable amount on the line for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their development driver the young American Colton Herta
