A little more than one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the official approval as Formula One’s latest entrant for 2026. Establishing the organization from scratch has required a intense operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the final race of the championship to be staged in the United States, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed project in March 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its core ever since and enjoys a amused expression when thinking about the experience.
“You might get a short period reflecting at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “And then the following moment you realize: ‘Well, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
The CTO had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the challenge of bringing the iconic American Cadillac name, a works entry sponsored by the parent company, GM, into F1.
“Building an F1 team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you won't have the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”
With every day that elapses minds are sharper on the approaching critical moment in Australia and targets are being handled.
“You have to assume that any incoming team coming in is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal commented this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the team had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So that we show up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender executing the correct procedures on the circuit. After we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate progression from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Push
In late summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their invaluable experience in operating at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a difficult start, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I am confident with this structure, with these individuals, this staff, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in full swing, with staff now at more than 400 and scheduled to reach the goal of six hundred rapidly. Complementing their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the midst of finishing an HQ at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to manufacture the new engine, planned for the 2029 season – until then they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex structure, contrary to the movement in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester alluded.
Space Mission Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” remarked the team principal just before the British GP in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, instead of the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of project teams all tackling various components of the project in a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they report it to their supervisor, that supervisor consults a manager at a different location, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” notes Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable people to really get on with it. Moving away from management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and quicker.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this nimble approach will be evaluated in the pressure of racing next season and there is a considerable amount on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
