Approximately twelve months previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last granted the green light as the world of Formula One's newest entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from the ground up has required a intense operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport converges on Vegas this race weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the final race of the season to be staged in the US, with around three months to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are cognizant there will not be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the nascent operation in the spring of 2023 not long after it was formed, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart since then and gets a amused expression when considering the experience.
“You can have a brief moment thinking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “But then the following moment you realize: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Chester had success at Renault in Alonso's title-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the task of bringing the all-American Cadillac marque, a factory team supported by the parent company, General Motors, into F1.
“Creating an F1 team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you rarely get the possibility to transform team culture.”
With every day that elapses focus are sharper on the approaching moment of truth in Australia and expectations are being managed.
“One must presume that any new team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal stated earlier this year and while Chester shared this view he thought the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So we arrive and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender executing the proper actions on the race track. When we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we want to show progression subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Push
In the summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a duo distinguished for their invaluable experience in operating at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and we expect probably a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. In my view with this setup, with this group, these personnel, it's entirely possible we won't be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To that end hiring has been in full swing, with employees now at over 400 and planned to hit the target of six hundred quickly. In addition to their existing facility at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of completing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to produce the new engine, planned for 2029 – until then they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, different from the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred.
Apollo Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said the team principal shortly before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we know how difficult it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, rather than the traditional management structure, a flat management structure akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of project teams all focusing on different aspects of the mission across a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a procedure where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their team leader, that leader talks to a leader in another department, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” explains the CTO. “Therefore we enable team members to take charge. Avoiding hierarchical consent for all decisions is far more efficient and more rapid.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this flexible methodology will be tested in the pressure of racing next season and there is a considerable amount on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta
