A little more than twelve months in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the go-ahead as F1's newest entry for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from scratch has entailed a frenetic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As F1 converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the championship to be hosted in the United States, with approximately 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent team in March 2023 soon after it was formed, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart since then and has a knowing grin when considering the ride.
“You can have a short period thinking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in less than three years,’” Chester states. “But then the next minute you think: ‘Yes, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has quite compared with the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the corporate entity, GM, into Formula One.
“Creating an Formula One team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you rarely get the chance to alter cultural approach.”
With each day that goes by thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the looming moment of truth in Australia and goals are being handled.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is going to be last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “In order that we show up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation executing the correct procedures on the race track. When we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we want to show forward movement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Effort
In August they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their invaluable experience in performing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to finish last. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, these personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in overdrive, with staff now reaching in excess of 400 and scheduled to reach the goal of 600 swiftly. Complementing their current base at the UK base, the organization are in the process of building an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are building the center to build the new engine, set for the 2029 season – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a intricate organisation, at odds with the trend in F1 for increased consolidation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester alluded.
NASA Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” remarked the team principal shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we understand how tough it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
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 specialist groups all focusing on different aspects of the project at a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their team leader, that leader consults a supervisor in another department, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” explains Chester. “So we empower staff to really get on with it. Avoiding management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a considerable amount on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
