Just over a full year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the official approval as the world of Formula One's newest entrant for 2026. Constructing the team from the ground up has involved a frenetic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac understand the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be staged in the US, with around 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed operation in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core from that point and has a knowing grin when thinking about the journey.
“There might be a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he says. “Then the next minute you realize: ‘Yeah, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious seasons of 2005/2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the task of introducing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an F1 team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you don’t get the chance to change organizational mindset.”
With each day that goes by minds are sharper on the impending critical moment in Melbourne and targets are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team joining the grid is going to be 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 believed the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he says. “So that we show up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team doing the proper actions on the race track. When we prove that our credentials are solid, then we want to show forward movement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push
In August they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a duo distinguished for their invaluable experience in competing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he said. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I am confident given this organization, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in full swing, with personnel now up to more than 400 and scheduled to attain the goal of six hundred rapidly. Complementing their present headquarters at Silverstone, the squad are in the midst of building an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the power unit, scheduled for the 2029 season – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organization, contrary to the trend in F1 for increased consolidation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester alluded.
Space Mission Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” stated Lowdon shortly before the British GP in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of project teams all working on distinct elements of the mission across a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a procedure where an issue arises and they raise it up to their team leader, that manager communicates with a leader in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “Therefore we enable staff to handle things directly. Eliminating hierarchical consent for everything is so much cleaner and quicker.”
The Future
The efficacy of this flexible approach will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a significant degree at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
