Just over a full year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the green light as the world of Formula One's latest entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from the ground up has entailed a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport descends on Las Vegas this weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the season finale of the season to be hosted in the US, with just over 100 days to go before they hit the circuit 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 sisyphean task, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic team in early 2023 soon after it was established, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center ever since and gets a wry smile when thinking about the journey.
“You can have five minutes reflecting at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “But then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yes, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
The CTO had success at Renault in Alonso's victorious seasons of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has been quite like the task of introducing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a factory team sponsored by the corporate entity, GM, into F1.
“Building an grand prix team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you won't have the possibility to alter team culture.”
With each day that passes focus are increasingly concentrated on the impending decisive point in Melbourne and targets are being managed.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad coming in is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” the team principal noted earlier this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we turn up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender executing the right things on the circuit. When we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we want to show improvement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Effort
In the summer they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair notable for their invaluable experience in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the attitude of combative optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it will likely be probably a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I believe given this organization, with these individuals, these people, it's entirely possible we can't manage to advance swiftly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To that end hiring has been in overdrive, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and scheduled to hit the target of six hundred quickly. In addition to their current base at the UK base, the team are in the process of building an HQ at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to produce the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organization, contrary to the movement in F1 for more centralization, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Chester referred.
Apollo Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” remarked the team principal just before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how tough it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a flat management structure comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of project teams all focusing on different aspects of the mission across a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a process where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their manager, that supervisor communicates with a manager somewhere else, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” says Chester. “So we empower staff to take charge. Avoiding hierarchical consent for all decisions is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this flexible strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
