A little more than one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as F1's most recent participant for 2026. Establishing the team from nothing has required a intense work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As the sport descends on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be staged in the United States, with approximately 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the nascent operation in March 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core since then and enjoys a amused expression when considering the experience.
“You can have five minutes thinking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the next minute you realize: ‘Yes, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has truly matched the challenge of bringing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an Formula One team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you won't have the chance to transform organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that elapses thoughts are more focused on the approaching moment of truth in Melbourne and goals are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any new team coming in is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon commented this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he believed the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So that we turn up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation performing the correct procedures on the circuit. When we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we will focus on progression after that.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push
In the summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair remarkable for their vast knowledge in operating at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We have a massive task to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to finish last. In my view with this structure, with these individuals, these personnel, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To that end recruitment has been in top gear, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and intended to reach the goal of 600 swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the process of building an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to produce the power unit, set for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, contrary to the direction in F1 for greater centralisation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Chester referred to.
Apollo Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” remarked Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how difficult it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of specialist groups all focusing on different aspects of the mission in a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that manager consults a leader at a different location, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to handle things directly. Eliminating managerial sign-off for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this nimble strategy will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
