Just over one year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the official approval as F1's newest entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from scratch has required a intense work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 arrives on Vegas this weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the season to be hosted in the America, with around 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent operation in the spring of 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart since then and gets a wry smile when reflecting on the experience.
“You can have a brief moment looking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in under three years,’” he notes. “But then the next minute you realize: ‘Yeah, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in Alonso's victorious years of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the challenge of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a factory team backed by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you won't have the chance to transform team culture.”
With every day that elapses minds are increasingly concentrated on the impending moment of truth in Australia and targets are being managed.
“One must presume that any new team coming in is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal noted this year and while Chester echoed this he felt the squad had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So that we turn up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team doing the right things on the circuit. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate progression from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Effort
In late summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in competing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver echoed the mood of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. In my view with this structure, with these individuals, these personnel, there’s no reason why we won't be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with employees now up to more than 400 and intended to reach the target of six hundred rapidly. Complementing their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of building an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are building the center to manufacture the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, contrary to the direction in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Chester referred to.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We are pragmatic, 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 embraced, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure akin to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all working on distinct elements of the mission at a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their manager, that supervisor talks to a supervisor at a different location, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” says Chester. “We give authority to staff to take charge. Eliminating hierarchical consent for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this flexible approach will be tested in the heat of competition next season and there is a considerable amount on the line for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta
