Approximately one year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the go-ahead as F1's most recent participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from scratch has involved a intense pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One converges on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the season finale of the campaign to be staged in the US, with just over three months to go before they take to the track for the first time 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 task, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed project in the spring of 2023 soon after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center from that point and enjoys a amused expression when considering the experience.
“There might be five minutes looking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in under three years,’” Chester states. “Then the next minute you consider: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the task of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One 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 don’t get the chance to change cultural approach.”
With every day that elapses focus are sharper on the looming critical moment in Melbourne and targets are being managed.
“You have to assume that any incoming team entering the sport is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So we arrive and we function efficiently. We want to show that we are a serious contender performing the proper actions on the track. Once we prove that we’re really credible, then we will focus on progression after that.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Effort
In the summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a duo remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas echoed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We face a massive task to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I am confident with this setup, with these individuals, these people, there’s no reason why we won't be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in full swing, with staff now at more than 400 and scheduled to hit the goal of 600 members quickly. In addition to their existing facility at Silverstone, the organization are in the process of building an main base at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are building the plant to produce the power unit, scheduled for the 2029 season – until then they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, contrary to the trend in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Chester referred to.
Apollo Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” stated Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we know how tough it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of project teams all working on distinct elements of the program across a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a protocol where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their team leader, that supervisor consults a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” notes Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for all decisions is much smoother and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this nimble approach will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is no little amount riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
