A little more than one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the green light as F1's most recent participant for 2026. Constructing the squad from the ground up has entailed a frenetic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 arrives on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the campaign to be held in the America, with just over 100 days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent operation in early 2023 shortly after it was established, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core from that point and enjoys a amused expression when thinking about the journey.
“You might get a short period looking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in under three years,’” he says. “And then the very next instant you think: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has truly matched the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac name, a works entry backed by the parent company, GM, into Formula One.
“Creating an grand prix team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you won't have the possibility to transform cultural approach.”
With every day that passes thoughts are sharper on the looming moment of truth in the Australian GP and goals are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad coming in is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” the team principal stated recently and while Chester echoed this he thought the organization had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So we show up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation executing the proper actions on the race track. When we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression after that.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Push
In August they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in competing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We face a massive task to do, and it’s going to be most likely a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I am confident with this structure, with this team, these personnel, there is every reason that we can't manage to get relatively quickly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in full swing, with staff now reaching over 400 and planned to reach the target of 600 members rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the phase of completing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are developing the plant to manufacture the power unit, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organisation, contrary to the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred.
NASA Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” said Lowdon ahead of the British GP in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how tough it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all working on distinct elements of the program across a different facilities.
“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their team leader, that manager talks to a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “So we empower people to take charge. Eliminating management approval for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this agile approach will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a significant degree at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
