Approximately one year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as F1's latest participant for the 2026 season. Building the squad from nothing has required a intense work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the last event of the season to be staged in the United States, with just over 100 days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent operation in early 2023 shortly after it was established, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart from that point and enjoys a amused expression when thinking about the ride.
“You might get a brief moment looking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the task of bringing the all-American Cadillac name, a works entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors, into F1.
“Establishing an Formula One team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you rarely get the chance to change cultural approach.”
With every day that goes by focus are more focused on the approaching decisive point in the Australian GP and goals are being handled.
“One must presume that any incoming team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he believed the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So that we show up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team executing the correct procedures on the race track. After we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on progression subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Push
In late summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their vast knowledge in competing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver expressed the mood of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. In my view with this setup, with this team, this staff, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To that end recruitment has been in full swing, with personnel now up to over 400 and scheduled to reach the goal of 600 quickly. Alongside their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the process of completing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to build the 2029 engine, planned for the 2029 season – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate organisation, different from the direction in the sport for more centralization, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Chester alluded.
Apollo Model
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” stated the team principal shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we know how tough it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of NASA's, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the project at a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a process where someone has a problem and they report it to their manager, that supervisor communicates with a manager at a different location, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” notes Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to handle things directly. Moving away from managerial sign-off for all decisions is much smoother and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a considerable amount riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
