Approximately a full year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the green light as the world of Formula One's latest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from nothing has entailed a intense operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the campaign to be held in the United States, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent team in March 2023 soon after it was formed, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center from that point and enjoys a amused expression when thinking about the journey.
“There might be a brief moment thinking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what the team has created in less than three years,’” Chester states. “But then the very next instant you think: ‘Yes, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Nick Chester had success at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the task of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Establishing an grand prix team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you rarely get the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”
With each day that goes by thoughts are sharper on the impending decisive point in Australia and expectations are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team coming in is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So we arrive and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team doing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we prove that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Push
In the summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a pair remarkable for their vast knowledge in performing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the mood of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and we expect probably a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to finish last. I believe with this setup, with this group, this staff, there’s no reason why we can't manage to advance swiftly to the front and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in overdrive, with staff now at more than 400 and scheduled to attain the goal of 600 quickly. In addition to their present headquarters at the UK base, the team are in the midst of completing an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the center to manufacture the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a complex organisation, contrary to the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Chester referred.
Apollo Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we know how difficult it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of specialist groups all tackling different aspects of the mission in a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their team leader, that manager communicates with a leader in another department, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” notes Chester. “We give authority to team members to take charge. Moving away from hierarchical consent for all decisions is much smoother and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be tested in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
