Just over one year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's newest participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from the ground up has entailed a hectic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One converges on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be hosted in the US, with around three months to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the nascent project in March 2023 not long after it was established, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its core since then and enjoys a knowing grin when thinking about the ride.
“You might get a short period reflecting at what you’ve done and say: ‘Wow, how impressive what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “But then the next minute you think: ‘Yes, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Nick Chester had success at Renault in Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac name, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an Formula One team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you won't have the chance to change team culture.”
With each passing day that elapses thoughts are sharper on the impending moment of truth in Australia and targets are being managed.
“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 feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So we arrive and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender performing the proper actions on the circuit. When we prove that our credentials are solid, then we want to show forward movement after that.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Effort
In August they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem notable for their priceless expertise in performing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We face a massive task to do, and it’s going to be most likely a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I believe given this organization, with this group, these personnel, there’s no reason why we can't manage to get relatively quickly to the front and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with staff now at more than 400 and planned to attain the goal of 600 rapidly. Complementing their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the phase of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are building the center to produce the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex organisation, different from the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO alluded.
Space Mission Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” stated Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how challenging it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of project teams all working on different aspects of the mission across a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they report it to their manager, that supervisor talks to a manager somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” says Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to take charge. Eliminating managerial sign-off for each action is much smoother and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this nimble methodology will be tested in the pressure of racing next season and there is a significant degree on the line for the sport, too. Cadillac have taken on as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
