A little more than one year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the official approval as Formula One’s latest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from the ground up has entailed a hectic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As Formula One descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be hosted in the United States, with just over 100 days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent project in March 2023 soon after it was created, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart since then and gets a wry smile when thinking about the experience.
“You might get a brief moment looking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in under three years,’” he notes. “But then the very next instant you think: ‘Yeah, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has truly matched the task of launching the all-American Cadillac name, a factory team supported by the corporate entity, General Motors, into F1.
“Establishing an Formula One team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you won't have the possibility to transform cultural approach.”
With every day that passes minds are sharper on the looming moment of truth in the Australian GP and expectations are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any incoming team coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while the CTO shared this view he felt the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So that we turn up and we operate well. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender executing the correct procedures on the track. When we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we will focus on progression from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Push
In the summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a duo notable for their vast knowledge in operating at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he said. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and we expect most likely a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to finish last. I am confident with this setup, with these individuals, these people, there’s no reason why we won't be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in full swing, with personnel now reaching more than 400 and scheduled to hit the objective of 600 members swiftly. Alongside their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the midst of building an main base at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are building the plant to manufacture the power unit, set for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, contrary to the movement in F1 for more centralization, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred.
NASA Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” said Lowdon just before the British GP in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we know how difficult it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of NASA's, where there were a range of project teams all working on distinct elements of the program in a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that supervisor communicates with a leader at a different location, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “So we empower staff to handle things directly. Moving away from hierarchical consent for each action is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this flexible strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is no little amount on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
