Approximately a full year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the official approval as F1's newest participant for 2026. Constructing the squad from nothing has involved a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be held in the United States, with just over a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent operation in March 2023 not long after it was established, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core ever since and enjoys a wry smile when considering the ride.
“There might be a short period reflecting at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what the team has created in less than three years,’” Chester states. “But then the following moment you realize: ‘Yeah, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
Chester achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the challenge of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Creating an Formula One team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you won't have the opportunity to change organizational mindset.”
With every day that passes thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the approaching moment of truth in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad coming in is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he thought the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So that we turn up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender executing the right things on the track. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive
In the summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo notable for their vast knowledge in competing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver reflected the mood of determined optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he said. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I am confident with this setup, with these individuals, these people, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in full swing, with staff now at in excess of 400 and planned to attain the target of six hundred rapidly. Complementing their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the midst of completing an HQ at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are building the center to build the new engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, different from the trend in F1 for greater centralisation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Chester referred.
NASA Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, rather than the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of project teams all working on different aspects of the project across a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a process where an issue arises and they escalate it to their manager, that manager talks to a manager in another department, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” notes Nick Chester. “So we empower people to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this agile methodology will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta
