Approximately a full year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately given the official approval as Formula One’s newest entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from nothing has required a frenetic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport converges on Vegas this race weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the season finale of the championship to be hosted in the US, with approximately three months to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed team in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart since then and enjoys a knowing grin when thinking about the ride.
“You might get a short period reflecting at what you’ve done and say: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what the team has created in less than three years,’” Chester states. “But then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Task
The CTO had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical direction at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the mission of launching the all-American Cadillac name, a factory team supported by the owner, GM, into F1.
“Creating an Formula One team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you don’t get the possibility to change cultural approach.”
With each day that goes by focus are sharper on the looming critical moment in Melbourne and goals are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any incoming team coming in is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” the team principal commented earlier this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he believed the team had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So we turn up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender performing the right things on the race track. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression after that.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Effort
In the summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for the 2026 season, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in performing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver echoed the mood of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he said. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I believe with this setup, with this group, this staff, there is every reason that we won't be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in top gear, with personnel now at over 400 and planned to attain the goal of 600 swiftly. Alongside their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the process of completing an headquarters at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are building the center to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex organization, at odds with the direction in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” said the team principal just before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how tough it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all working on various components of the project in a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a protocol where an issue arises and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a leader in another department, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “We give authority to people to take charge. Moving away from hierarchical consent for all decisions is far more efficient and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this flexible approach will be proven in the pressure of racing next season and there is a significant degree at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
