Just over a full year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the official approval as the world of Formula One's latest entry for 2026. Building the squad from nothing has involved a intense work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the campaign to be staged in the United States, with just over three months to go before they make their debut for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was created, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its center since then and gets a amused expression when considering the journey.
“You can have a short period thinking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what the team has created in less than three years,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you consider: ‘Well, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the mission of launching the all-American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the owner, General Motors, into F1.
“Building an Formula One team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you won't have the chance to transform cultural approach.”
With each passing day that elapses focus are sharper on the looming moment of truth in Melbourne and goals are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad coming in is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he believed the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation doing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we prove that we’re really credible, then we will focus on improvement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Effort
In August they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair notable for their priceless expertise in operating at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and we expect probably a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I am confident given this organization, with this team, these people, there is every reason that we can't manage to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in full swing, with employees now at in excess of 400 and scheduled to hit the goal of 600 members quickly. Complementing their present headquarters at Silverstone, the organization are in the process of completing an main base at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are developing the center to build the new engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a intricate organization, contrary to the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Chester referred.
NASA Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” stated the team principal ahead of the Silverstone race in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how challenging it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all tackling various components of the mission in a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a process where an issue arises and they raise it up to their manager, that supervisor talks to a supervisor at a different location, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” explains the CTO. “So we empower team members to handle things directly. Moving away from management approval for everything is much smoother and quicker.”
The Future
The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be tested in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is no little amount at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
