Just over a full year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the official approval as F1's newest participant for 2026. Constructing the squad from the ground up has involved a frenetic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One converges on Las Vegas this weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be held in the United States, with approximately three months to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are cognizant there will not be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent team in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core from that point and enjoys a knowing grin when considering the experience.
“You can have a short period looking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what the team has created in under three years,’” Chester states. “But then the following moment you consider: ‘Yes, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the task of introducing the all-American Cadillac name, a works entry sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Establishing an Formula One team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you won't have the possibility to transform organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that passes thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the impending critical moment in Melbourne and targets are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team entering the sport is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted recently and while Nick Chester shared this view he thought the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “In order that we show up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender performing the proper actions on the track. After we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on forward movement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push
In the summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a tandem notable for their invaluable experience in performing at the front in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the mood of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to stay at the back. In my view with this setup, with this team, these personnel, there’s no reason why we can't manage to advance swiftly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To that end recruitment has been in overdrive, with staff now up to more than 400 and planned to attain the objective of 600 quickly. In addition to their present headquarters at Silverstone, the team are in the process of building an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to build the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex organization, at odds with the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred to.
Apollo Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” stated Lowdon shortly before the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of NASA's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all tackling distinct elements of the program at a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they report it to their team leader, that manager communicates with a leader at a different location, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” says Nick Chester. “So we empower team members to take charge. Eliminating managerial sign-off for each action is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
The Future
The success of this flexible strategy will be evaluated in the pressure of racing next season and there is a considerable amount riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
