Approximately one year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the official approval as F1's latest entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from scratch has involved a frenetic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As Formula One converges on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac understand time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the season to be staged in the US, with approximately 100 days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent operation in early 2023 shortly after it was established, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core ever since and has a amused expression when considering the experience.
“There might be five minutes reflecting at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “But then the next minute you consider: ‘Yes, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Nick Chester had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the task of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a factory team supported by the owner, General Motors, into F1.
“Establishing an grand prix team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you won't have the chance to transform cultural approach.”
With each passing day that passes thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the impending moment of truth in the Australian GP and expectations are being handled.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he felt the squad had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So we turn up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation doing the proper actions on the track. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we will focus on improvement after that.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Push
In August they recruited Checo Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a duo notable for their priceless expertise in competing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We have a massive task to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. I am confident given this organization, with this group, this staff, there’s no reason why we can't manage to progress rapidly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in full swing, with personnel now reaching in excess of 400 and planned to reach the target of 600 quickly. Alongside their current base at Silverstone, the organization are in the phase of completing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are constructing the center to build the new engine, planned 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 organisation, different from the movement in F1 for more centralization, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred to.
Space Mission Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” said Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of project teams all focusing on various components of the program at a different facilities.
“When you must follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their manager, that supervisor communicates with a leader at a different location, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” says the CTO. “We give authority to staff to handle things directly. Avoiding hierarchical consent for each action is much smoother and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this flexible strategy will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a considerable amount riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
