Just over twelve months in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the official approval as Formula One’s most recent entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from nothing has required a hectic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As Formula One converges on Vegas this race weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be staged in the US, with around three months to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the nascent team in the spring of 2023 not long after it was created, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center since then and enjoys a amused expression when reflecting on the journey.
“There might be a short period thinking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we’ve done in under three years,’” Chester states. “And then the following moment you consider: ‘Well, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in command of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has been quite like the task of launching the all-American Cadillac brand, a works entry supported by the owner, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an grand prix 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 won't have the possibility to transform team culture.”
With each day that elapses thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the looming decisive point in Australia and targets are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon noted this year and while Chester shared this view he felt the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So we arrive and we operate well. We want to show that we are a serious contender doing the right things on the race track. After we prove that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Drive
In the summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their priceless expertise in competing at the front in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver reflected the mood of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I believe with this structure, with this team, these personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To that end recruitment has been in overdrive, with employees now at in excess of 400 and intended to hit the objective of 600 rapidly. Complementing their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the midst of building an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are building the center to build the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will use Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a intricate organization, contrary to the movement in F1 for more centralization, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Chester referred.
Space Mission Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” stated Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we know how tough it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, instead of the traditional management structure, a decentralized management similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all tackling distinct elements of the mission across a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their supervisor, that leader communicates with a leader in another department, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” notes Chester. “So we empower people to take charge. Avoiding management approval for each action is so much cleaner and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this nimble 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 development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
