A little more than one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last granted the green light as the world of Formula One's latest participant for 2026. Establishing the team from the ground up has involved a frenetic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be held in the America, with approximately 100 days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent operation in March 2023 shortly after it was created, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the ride.
“You can have five minutes looking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in under three years,’” he says. “And then the very next instant you realize: ‘Well, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
The CTO had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious seasons of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the task of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the parent company, GM, into F1.
“Establishing an grand prix team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you rarely get the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”
With each day that goes by minds are more focused on the looming moment of truth in the Australian GP and targets are being handled.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is going to be last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while the CTO echoed this he believed the team had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So that we arrive and we operate well. We want to show that we are a serious contender doing the proper actions on the circuit. After we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Drive
In late summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a tandem notable for their invaluable experience in operating at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be probably a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to finish last. In my view given this organization, with this team, these people, there’s no reason why we won't be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in full swing, with employees now at more than 400 and planned to attain the objective of six hundred rapidly. Alongside their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the midst of building an main base at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are developing the center to manufacture the 2029 engine, planned for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate structure, at odds with the direction in Formula One for more centralization, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Chester referred to.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” remarked the team principal ahead of the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we know how tough it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all tackling different aspects of the program in a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their supervisor, that supervisor consults a leader at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says Chester. “We give authority to team members to really get on with it. Moving away from managerial sign-off for all decisions is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this nimble methodology will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a considerable amount at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
