Approximately twelve months previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the official approval as F1's most recent entrant for 2026. Building the team from scratch has required a frenetic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 converges on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the season finale of the season to be hosted in the US, with just over a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed operation in March 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core since then and enjoys a knowing grin when reflecting on the ride.
“There might be five minutes looking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Wow, how impressive what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the following moment you consider: ‘Well, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Chester had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical development at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the mission of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you don’t get the opportunity to transform organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that goes by minds are increasingly concentrated on the approaching decisive point in Melbourne and targets are being managed.
“You have to assume that any new team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted this year and while the CTO shared this view he thought the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we arrive and we function efficiently. We want to show that we’re a proper team executing the proper actions on the race track. After we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on improvement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive
In August they contracted Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their invaluable experience in competing at the front in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We have a massive task to do, and it will likely be probably a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. In my view with this setup, with this group, this staff, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in full swing, with personnel now up to more than 400 and planned to hit the goal of 600 swiftly. Complementing their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the midst of finishing an headquarters at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to manufacture the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organisation, at odds with the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred to.
Apollo Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” said Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in July. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how difficult it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management comparable 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.
“When you must follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they report it to their team leader, that manager talks to a manager at a different location, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” says Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to take charge. Eliminating hierarchical consent for each action is much smoother and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a considerable amount riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
