A little more than one year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the green light as the world of Formula One's most recent entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from nothing has involved a frenetic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 converges on Vegas this race weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the championship to be hosted in the America, with approximately three months to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
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 official entry. He has been at its heart ever since and has a wry smile when considering the experience.
“You might get a short period looking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he notes. “But then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yes, there is still a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the mission of bringing the all-American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the owner, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Creating an F1 team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you don’t get the opportunity to transform team culture.”
With each day that elapses minds are increasingly concentrated on the impending moment of truth in Australia and targets are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any new team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated recently and while Nick Chester echoed this he believed the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So we show up and we operate well. We want to show that we’re a proper team doing the correct procedures on the track. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we will focus on progression after that.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Push
In August they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a tandem notable for their priceless expertise in competing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Bottas expressed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and we expect most likely a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I believe given this organization, with this team, these people, there’s no reason why we can't manage to advance swiftly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with staff now up to more than 400 and intended to hit the goal of six hundred quickly. In addition to their existing facility at Silverstone, the squad are in the process of finishing an main base at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to produce the new engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, different from the movement in the sport for more centralization, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which the CTO alluded.
NASA Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” remarked the team principal just before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We’re realistic, we understand how challenging it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of specialist groups all focusing on different aspects of the mission in a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where an issue arises and they report it to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a manager in another department, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” notes Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable people to really get on with it. Avoiding management approval for everything is much smoother and quicker.”
The Future
The efficacy of this flexible strategy will be proven in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a significant degree riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
