Approximately a full year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the green light as the world of Formula One's latest entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from nothing has required a intense pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport arrives on Vegas this weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be held in the US, with approximately three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic team in early 2023 soon after it was created, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core since then and enjoys a amused expression when reflecting on the journey.
“You might get five minutes reflecting at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we’ve done in under three years,’” he says. “And then the very next instant you think: ‘Well, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the task of launching the all-American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the owner, General Motors, into F1.
“Creating an grand prix team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you rarely get the possibility to alter organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that passes thoughts are sharper on the impending critical moment in Melbourne and targets are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any incoming team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal noted this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the team had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So that we turn up and we function efficiently. We want to show that we’re a proper team doing the right things on the circuit. Once we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate progression after that.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Effort
In late summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo remarkable for their invaluable experience in operating at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I am confident given this organization, with this team, these personnel, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To that end hiring has been in full swing, with personnel now reaching over 400 and intended to reach the objective of 600 members quickly. Alongside their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the process of building an main base at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the center to produce the power unit, set for 2029 – until then they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex organization, at odds with the movement in F1 for more centralization, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Chester referred.
Apollo Model
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” stated Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we understand how challenging it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, rather than the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on distinct elements of the project in a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their supervisor, that manager communicates with a supervisor somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” notes Chester. “So we empower people to take charge. Moving away from management approval for everything is so much cleaner and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this flexible approach will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a considerable amount at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta
