Just over one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the green light as Formula One’s latest entry for 2026. Establishing the squad from nothing has required a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One converges on Las Vegas this weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be staged in the America, with around a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic team in the spring of 2023 not long after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart from that point and enjoys a knowing grin when considering the journey.
“There might be five minutes reflecting at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we have built in less than three years,’” he says. “Then the following moment you think: ‘Well, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Task
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical development at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the challenge of introducing the iconic American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an Formula One team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you won't have the chance to transform team culture.”
With each passing day that elapses focus are increasingly concentrated on the approaching critical moment in the Australian GP and expectations are being handled.
“You have to assume that any incoming team coming in is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal commented recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he felt the organization had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “In order that we arrive and we function efficiently. We want to show that we’re a proper team performing the right things on the circuit. After we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Push
In August they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a duo remarkable for their priceless expertise in operating at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the attitude of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he said. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a tough opening, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to finish last. I believe given this organization, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we can't manage to get relatively quickly to the front and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in overdrive, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and planned to attain the target of 600 members swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of finishing an HQ at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are building the center to manufacture the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, contrary to the trend in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Chester referred to.
Space Mission Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” stated the team principal just before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize 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 embraced, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all working on distinct elements of the project across a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a protocol where an issue arises and they raise it up to their manager, that supervisor communicates with a manager at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says Nick Chester. “We give authority to people to take charge. Avoiding managerial sign-off for all decisions is far more efficient and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this nimble approach will be evaluated in the pressure of racing next season and there is no little amount at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
