A little more than twelve months previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last granted the green light as the world of Formula One's latest entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from nothing has required a intense pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the season to be held in the America, with approximately a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic project in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was created, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart since then and enjoys a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“There might be five minutes thinking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Incredible, how impressive what the team has created in under three years,’” Chester states. “But then the very next instant you consider: ‘Well, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
The CTO 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 nothing has truly matched the challenge of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an F1 team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you don’t get the opportunity to alter team culture.”
With every day that elapses minds are increasingly concentrated on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and goals are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any new team joining the grid is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he believed the team had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So we turn up and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation executing the correct procedures on the race track. When we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate improvement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Effort
In late summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Bottas echoed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he said. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be probably a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I believe given this organization, with this group, these personnel, there is every reason that we can't manage to get relatively quickly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with staff now reaching more than 400 and intended to attain the objective of 600 members quickly. Alongside their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the process of finishing an HQ at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the power unit, planned for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, contrary to the direction in the sport for more centralization, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which the CTO alluded.
NASA Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” stated Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how tough it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Well, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of NASA's, where there were a range of project teams all focusing on distinct elements of the project at a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their team leader, that manager communicates with a supervisor somewhere else, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” says Chester. “So we empower staff to take charge. Eliminating managerial sign-off for each action is so much cleaner and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be tested in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a considerable amount riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
