A little more than twelve months ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the official approval as F1's latest entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from scratch has required a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the final race of the championship to be hosted in the United States, with approximately 100 days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the nascent operation in March 2023 shortly after it was established, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart from that point and enjoys a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“There might be five minutes reflecting at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we’ve done in under three years,’” Chester states. “And then the following moment you realize: ‘Yes, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious seasons of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the task of launching the all-American Cadillac marque, a factory team backed by the owner, General Motors, into F1.
“Creating an F1 team from scratch, 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 rarely get the chance to change team culture.”
With each passing day that passes minds are sharper on the looming moment of truth in the Australian GP and goals are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team coming in is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the organization had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the circuit. When we prove that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Push
In late summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the mood of determined optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a massive task to do, and we expect almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we’re not there to finish last. I am confident with this setup, with this group, these people, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to the front and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in top gear, with employees now reaching more than 400 and scheduled to hit the target of 600 quickly. Alongside their existing facility at Silverstone, the squad are in the midst of building an HQ at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are developing the center to produce the 2029 engine, planned for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, contrary to the trend in the sport for more centralization, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred to.
Apollo Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” stated the team principal ahead of the Silverstone race in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how challenging it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of specialist groups all focusing on different aspects of the program at a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they report it to their team leader, that manager consults a leader in another department, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” explains the CTO. “So we empower people to handle things directly. Avoiding management approval for all decisions is so much cleaner and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this agile methodology will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a considerable amount riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
