Just over a full year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the green light as Formula One’s newest entrant for 2026. Constructing the squad from the ground up has entailed a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport arrives on Vegas this weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be held in the US, with around three months to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic operation in March 2023 soon after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart ever since and enjoys a amused expression when thinking about the journey.
“There might be a short period looking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what the team has created in under three years,’” he notes. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Yes, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Alonso's victorious seasons of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the task of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors, into F1.
“Creating an Formula One team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you rarely get the opportunity to change organizational mindset.”
With every day that elapses thoughts are sharper on the impending moment of truth in the Australian GP and targets are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any incoming team coming in is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated earlier this year and while the CTO echoed this he thought the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we should be there,” he says. “So that we turn up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation doing the right things on the race track. After we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on improvement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Effort
In August they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a duo distinguished for their vast knowledge in competing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas expressed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to finish last. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, this staff, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in top gear, with staff now reaching over 400 and planned to hit the objective of six hundred rapidly. Complementing their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of finishing an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are building the facility to produce the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex organisation, at odds with the direction in the sport for more centralization, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred.
NASA Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” stated the team principal just before the British Grand Prix in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how challenging it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. OK, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a decentralized management comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on distinct elements of the project across a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a process where an issue arises and they escalate it to their team leader, that leader talks to a leader somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” explains Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to really get on with it. Moving away from hierarchical consent for all decisions is much smoother and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this agile strategy will be proven in the pressure of racing next season and there is a significant degree at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
