Just over one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as F1's latest entrant for the 2026 season. Building the team from the ground up has involved a intense operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As Formula One arrives on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be staged in the America, with just over a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent project in the spring of 2023 soon after it was formed, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core ever since and enjoys a wry smile when considering the experience.
“There might be five minutes reflecting at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “And then the following moment you realize: ‘Yeah, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the task of launching the all-American Cadillac brand, a works entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors, into F1.
“Building an F1 team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you won't have the possibility to transform team culture.”
With each passing day that goes by minds are sharper on the approaching decisive point in Melbourne and expectations are being handled.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad coming in is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal noted earlier this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he thought the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So that we show up and we operate well. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team executing the right things on the circuit. When we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate improvement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Drive
In August they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a duo remarkable for their priceless expertise in performing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the attitude of combative optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We have a massive task to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a tough opening, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I am confident with this structure, with this team, this staff, there’s no reason why we won't be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in top gear, with personnel now reaching in excess of 400 and scheduled to hit the objective of 600 quickly. Complementing their existing facility at Silverstone, the organization are in the phase of building an headquarters at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to build the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, contrary to the movement in F1 for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Chester referred.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” remarked Lowdon shortly before the British GP in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we recognize how challenging it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, instead of 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 working on different aspects of the program at a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor consults a supervisor in another department, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” says the CTO. “Therefore we enable staff to really get on with it. Moving away from hierarchical consent for all decisions is much smoother and faster.”
The Future
The success of this flexible methodology will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a considerable amount riding on this for the sport, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta
