Approximately one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the official approval as F1's most recent participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from the ground up has required a intense pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One descends on Vegas this race weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be staged in the America, with around three months to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent operation in the spring of 2023 soon after it was established, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center from that point and has a knowing grin when considering the ride.
“You might get a short period reflecting at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “But then the very next instant you consider: ‘Well, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Chester had success at Renault in Alonso's title-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has been quite like the task of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Creating an F1 team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you won't have the opportunity to change organizational mindset.”
With every day that passes focus are increasingly concentrated on the impending critical moment in Melbourne and goals are being handled.
“One must presume that any incoming team joining the grid is going to be last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal commented recently and while Nick Chester echoed this he felt the team had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we turn up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team performing the proper actions on the track. Once we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show forward movement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Effort
In late summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a duo notable for their invaluable experience in performing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and we expect most likely a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I am confident with this setup, with this team, this staff, it's entirely possible we won't be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in full swing, with personnel now reaching more than 400 and scheduled to reach the target of 600 members quickly. In addition to their present headquarters at the UK base, the team are in the process of completing an main base at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the center to manufacture the power unit, set for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate organisation, different from the movement in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Chester referred to.
NASA Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we understand how difficult it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, rather than the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all working on distinct elements of the program across a different facilities.
“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their manager, that supervisor consults a supervisor in another department, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says the CTO. “So we empower team members to really get on with it. Avoiding management approval for each action is so much cleaner and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this flexible approach will be tested in the heat of competition next season and there is no little amount at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
