A little more than one year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the go-ahead as Formula One’s latest entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from scratch has required a frenetic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport converges on Vegas this race weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be held in the United States, with just over a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are cognizant there will not be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed team in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core ever since and gets a wry smile when considering the experience.
“You can have a brief moment reflecting at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in under three years,’” he says. “Then the following moment you consider: ‘Well, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac marque, a works entry sponsored by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Creating an F1 team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you don’t get the opportunity to transform team culture.”
With each day that elapses focus are more focused on the impending moment of truth in the Australian GP and expectations are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any incoming team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” the team principal noted this year and while Chester shared this view he thought the squad had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we arrive and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team executing the correct procedures on the circuit. After we prove that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on forward movement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Drive
In August they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a duo notable for their vast knowledge in operating at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he said. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a tough opening, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I believe with this setup, with this group, this staff, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in top gear, with staff now up to over 400 and scheduled to reach the goal of six hundred quickly. Complementing their present headquarters at the UK base, the organization are in the process of building an HQ at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the center to produce the 2029 engine, planned for the 2029 season – for now they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex organisation, different from the direction in Formula One for more centralization, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester alluded.
NASA Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in July. “We are pragmatic, we understand how difficult it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a flat management structure akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of project teams all tackling different aspects of the program at a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a process where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that manager talks to a leader at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says the CTO. “Therefore we enable people to handle things directly. Avoiding management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and quicker.”
The Future
The success of this nimble strategy will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is no little amount at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
