Just over a full year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately given the green light as the world of Formula One's newest participant for 2026. Building the squad from nothing has entailed a frenetic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One descends on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be hosted in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season 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 never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent team in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart ever since and enjoys a knowing grin when thinking about the experience.
“There might be a brief moment thinking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he says. “But then the next minute you think: ‘Well, we still have a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the challenge of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a factory team supported by the parent company, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an grand prix team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you don’t get the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”
With each day that goes by focus are increasingly concentrated on the looming decisive point in Melbourne and targets are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team joining the grid is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal commented recently and while Chester shared this view he felt the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So we arrive and we function efficiently. We want to show that this is a professional operation executing the right things on the track. Once we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on progression after that.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Drive
In August they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a duo distinguished for their vast knowledge in performing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver echoed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he said. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and we expect probably a difficult start, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, these people, there is every reason that we can't manage to advance swiftly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with staff now at more than 400 and intended to reach the target of 600 rapidly. In addition to their present headquarters at the UK base, the organization are in the process of building an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to build the power unit, set for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, at odds with the movement in F1 for more centralization, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Chester referred.
Apollo Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” stated the team principal shortly before the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how tough it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure akin to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the mission in a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a procedure where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a supervisor somewhere else, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to handle things directly. Moving away from management approval for all decisions is much smoother and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this flexible strategy will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is no little amount at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
