Just over twelve months previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the go-ahead as F1's newest entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from scratch has involved a frenetic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As Formula One arrives on Vegas this race weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the last event of the season to be held in the United States, with around a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic project in the spring of 2023 not long after it was formed, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart since then and gets a wry smile when considering the journey.
“You might get a short period thinking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Wow, how impressive what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “And then the next minute you consider: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious years of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical direction at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the mission of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Building an grand prix team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you rarely get the chance to transform cultural approach.”
With each day that passes focus are more focused on the impending moment of truth in the Australian GP and targets are being handled.
“One must presume that any incoming team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal commented earlier this year and while Chester shared this view he believed the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So that we show up and we operate well. We want to show that we’re a proper team executing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive
In the summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their priceless expertise in competing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas echoed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he said. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a difficult start, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to finish last. I believe with this structure, with this group, this staff, there’s no reason why we won't be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in full swing, with staff now at in excess of 400 and intended to attain the target of six hundred swiftly. In addition to their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of building an headquarters at Fishers in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to produce the new engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate organization, at odds with the movement in F1 for greater centralisation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester alluded.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” stated Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we understand how tough it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, rather than the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of project teams all focusing on distinct elements of the program in a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their supervisor, that manager talks to a leader at a different location, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” explains Chester. “So we empower team members to really get on with it. Avoiding hierarchical consent for each action is far more efficient and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this agile strategy will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is no little amount on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
