A little more than one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the go-ahead as F1's most recent participant for 2026. Constructing the organization from nothing has entailed a hectic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As Formula One arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be staged in the US, with around 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are cognizant there will not be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic project in the spring of 2023 soon after it was formed, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart ever since and gets a wry smile when considering the journey.
“You can have a short period reflecting at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Wow, how impressive what the team has created in under three years,’” he notes. “Then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a works entry sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Building an grand prix team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you rarely get the chance to change team culture.”
With each day that passes minds are sharper on the looming decisive point in Melbourne and targets are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team coming in is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” the team principal noted this year and while the CTO shared this view he believed the organization had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we arrive and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team doing the correct procedures on the track. When we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on improvement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Push
In late summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair remarkable for their priceless expertise in competing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver echoed the mood of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he said. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I believe with this structure, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To that end hiring has been in full swing, with staff now reaching over 400 and intended to hit the target of six hundred swiftly. Complementing their current base at Silverstone, the organization are in the process of building an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the center to manufacture the 2029 engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – for now they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, different from the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred.
NASA Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” stated Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all focusing on distinct elements of the mission across a different facilities.
“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they report it to their supervisor, that leader communicates with a leader in another department, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” explains Nick Chester. “So we empower team members to handle things directly. Avoiding hierarchical consent for everything is much smoother and faster.”
The Future
The success of this nimble strategy will be tested in the heat of competition next season and there is no little amount riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta
