Just over twelve months previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last given the official approval as Formula One’s most recent entry for the 2026 season. Building the squad from nothing has entailed a frenetic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One arrives on Vegas this weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be staged in the America, with around a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent project in the spring of 2023 soon after it was established, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart from that point and gets a wry smile when reflecting on the ride.
“You can have five minutes thinking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we have built in under three years,’” he notes. “And then the next minute you consider: ‘Yes, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the challenge of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the owner, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Establishing an F1 team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you don’t get the possibility to transform team culture.”
With every day that goes by minds are sharper on the impending moment of truth in Australia and expectations are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team entering the sport is going to be last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he felt the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “In order that we show up and we operate well. We want to show that this is a professional operation performing the right things on the race track. When we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate progression subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Push
In the summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a duo remarkable for their vast knowledge in performing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver expressed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he said. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. In my view given this organization, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we won't be able to progress rapidly to the front and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with employees now up to over 400 and planned to reach the goal of 600 swiftly. In addition to their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the process of building an headquarters at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organization, contrary to the movement in F1 for increased consolidation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Chester alluded.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” said the team principal just before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how tough it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure similar to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all tackling distinct elements of the mission at a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their team leader, that manager consults a supervisor at a different location, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” notes Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable people to take charge. Moving away from hierarchical consent for everything is much smoother and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a significant degree riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
