Approximately one year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last given the green light as Formula One’s latest entrant for 2026. Constructing the squad from the ground up has involved a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport arrives on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
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 take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed project in the spring of 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center from that point and enjoys a wry smile when considering the experience.
“You might get a brief moment thinking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he says. “Then the next minute you consider: ‘Yes, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the mission of launching the iconic American Cadillac marque, a factory team sponsored by the owner, General Motors, into F1.
“Building an grand prix team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you won't have the possibility to alter team culture.”
With each passing day that elapses focus are sharper on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being handled.
“You have to assume that any new team coming in is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal commented recently and while the CTO shared this view he felt the team had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team performing the right things on the race track. After we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we will focus on improvement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Effort
In late summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their invaluable experience in competing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a tough opening, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. In my view given this organization, with this team, these people, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in overdrive, with personnel now reaching more than 400 and planned to reach the objective of 600 rapidly. In addition to their present headquarters at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of finishing an main base at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex organisation, different from the direction in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred.
NASA Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” said Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in July. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how difficult it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the mission in a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their supervisor, that manager consults a supervisor in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” says the CTO. “We give authority to staff to really get on with it. Eliminating hierarchical consent for everything is far more efficient and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is no little amount at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
