Just over twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the go-ahead as F1's latest entrant for 2026. Constructing the squad from scratch has entailed a hectic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be hosted in the America, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent project in March 2023 soon after it was formed, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart ever since and gets a wry smile when considering the ride.
“You can have a brief moment thinking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the task of introducing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a factory team backed by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Creating an Formula One team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you won't have the possibility to change organizational mindset.”
With every day that passes focus are increasingly concentrated on the impending critical moment in Australia and expectations are being managed.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “In order that we show up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team doing the correct procedures on the race track. After we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show progression after that.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Push
In the summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo notable for their invaluable experience in operating at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the mood of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We face a massive task to do, and it’s going to be probably a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to finish last. In my view given this organization, with these individuals, these people, there is every reason that we won't be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To that end recruitment has been in top gear, with employees now up to more than 400 and scheduled to attain the objective of 600 members rapidly. Alongside their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of completing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are building the plant to build the 2029 engine, planned for the 2029 season – until then they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, different from the direction in the sport for increased consolidation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred.
Apollo Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” said Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of project teams all working on various components of the mission across a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they report it to their manager, that manager communicates with a leader somewhere else, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” says Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to take charge. Eliminating managerial sign-off for everything is much smoother and faster.”
The Future
The success of this flexible strategy will be evaluated in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
