Approximately a full year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the official approval as Formula One’s most recent entrant for 2026. Constructing the squad from the ground up has required a hectic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be held in the America, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed project in early 2023 soon after it was established, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart since then and gets a amused expression when considering the experience.
“You can have five minutes looking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's victorious seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the parent company, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an grand prix team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you won't have the chance to transform team culture.”
With every day that passes thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the approaching decisive point in Australia and targets are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while Nick Chester shared this view he felt the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So that we turn up and we operate well. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we want to show forward movement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Drive
In the summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a duo distinguished for their invaluable experience in performing at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We have a massive task to do, and we expect most likely a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, this staff, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To that end recruitment has been in top gear, with staff now at more than 400 and intended to attain the objective of 600 swiftly. Alongside their present headquarters at Silverstone, the team are in the phase of building an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are building the center to build the power unit, planned for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, contrary to the trend in the sport for increased consolidation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Chester referred.
Apollo Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how tough it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, rather than the traditional management structure, a flat management structure akin to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of project teams all working on different aspects of the program across a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a protocol where someone has a problem and they report it to their supervisor, that manager talks to a manager at a different location, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” notes Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable people to handle things directly. Avoiding hierarchical consent for each action is so much cleaner and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this flexible approach will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a considerable amount at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the young American Colton Herta
