A little more than twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately given the green light as the world of Formula One's newest entrant for 2026. Constructing the team from scratch has required a intense work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As Formula One descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be staged in the US, with just over 100 days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic operation in early 2023 shortly after it was created, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center ever since and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the ride.
“There might be five minutes reflecting at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he says. “Then the next minute you consider: ‘Well, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Chester had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the task of launching the all-American Cadillac name, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Building an F1 team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you rarely get the opportunity to alter team culture.”
With every day that elapses thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the approaching decisive point in Melbourne and targets are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad entering the sport is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the team had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender doing the right things on the race track. Once we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on improvement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Push
In late summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their drivers for the 2026 season, a pair distinguished for their vast knowledge in performing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas echoed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and we expect most likely a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I believe given this organization, with this group, this staff, there is every reason that we can't manage to get relatively quickly to the front and taste victory.”
To that end recruitment has been in overdrive, with employees now up to over 400 and planned to reach the target of 600 members rapidly. Complementing their existing facility at Silverstone, the team are in the phase of finishing an HQ at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are building the plant to produce the new engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organisation, different from the direction in F1 for increased consolidation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester alluded.
Space Mission Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in July. “We are pragmatic, we know how difficult it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, instead of the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all working on various components of the project across a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a process where an issue arises and they raise it up to their team leader, that supervisor talks to a leader somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” notes Chester. “We give authority to team members to really get on with it. Moving away from managerial sign-off for all decisions is much smoother and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this flexible methodology will be evaluated in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a considerable amount at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
