Just over a full year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the green light as the world of Formula One's most recent participant for the 2026 season. Building the team from scratch has entailed a hectic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac know the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be hosted in the United States, with approximately a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are cognizant there will not be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed operation in the spring of 2023 soon after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart ever since and has a amused expression when thinking about the experience.
“You might get a short period looking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we’ve done in under three years,’” he says. “Then the very next instant you think: ‘Yes, we still have a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical development at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the task of bringing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a factory team backed by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Establishing an Formula One team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you don’t get the chance to transform cultural approach.”
With every day that elapses thoughts are more focused on the approaching moment of truth in Melbourne and targets are being managed.
“One must presume that any new team entering the sport is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” the team principal stated earlier this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we should be there,” he says. “So we turn up and we perform competently. We want to show that we’re a proper team doing the right things on the race track. Once we prove that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Push
In late summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair notable for their priceless expertise in operating at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver expressed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he said. “We have a massive task to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a difficult start, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. In my view with this structure, with these individuals, these personnel, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in top gear, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and scheduled to attain the objective of 600 rapidly. In addition to their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the process of building an HQ at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to build the power unit, planned for the 2029 season – until then they will run power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a complex organization, at odds with the direction in Formula One for more centralization, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Chester referred.
Apollo Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” stated the team principal shortly before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, instead of the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure akin to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all working on distinct elements of the project at a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a process where someone has a problem and they report it to their supervisor, that leader consults a manager in another department, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” explains Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable people to handle things directly. Avoiding managerial sign-off for each action is much smoother and faster.”
The Future
The success of this agile approach will be proven in the heat of competition next season and there is no little amount riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
