A little more than twelve months ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the green light as F1's most recent participant for 2026. Building the organization from nothing has entailed a frenetic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be held in the America, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic team in the spring of 2023 not long after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its center since then and enjoys a knowing grin when reflecting on the ride.
“You might get five minutes reflecting at what you’ve done and go: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in less than three years,’” Chester states. “Then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac brand, a factory team supported by the owner, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an grand prix team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you rarely get the chance to transform cultural approach.”
With each passing day that goes by thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the looming moment of truth in Melbourne and targets are being set realistically.
“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 accomplishment in itself,” the team principal commented this year and while Chester echoed this he thought the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that we are a serious contender executing the right things on the track. When we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on forward movement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Push
In August they signed Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a pair notable for their invaluable experience in competing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Bottas echoed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. In my view with this structure, with this team, these personnel, it's entirely possible we won't be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in full swing, with personnel now at more than 400 and intended to hit the target of 600 quickly. Alongside their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the phase of finishing an HQ at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the center to produce the power unit, set for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate organisation, different from the trend in F1 for more centralization, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred.
Space Mission Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” said the team principal ahead of the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how difficult it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, rather than the traditional management structure, a decentralized management similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of project teams all working on various components of the program at a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their manager, that leader communicates with a leader at a different location, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” notes the CTO. “We give authority to staff to really get on with it. Eliminating hierarchical consent for each action is much smoother and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this flexible approach will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a considerable amount on the line for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
