A little more than one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the go-ahead as F1's latest entrant for 2026. Establishing the team from nothing has entailed a frenetic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport descends on Vegas this weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be hosted in the US, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed project in early 2023 not long after it was formed, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart ever since and gets a wry smile when thinking about the ride.
“You can have a short period thinking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Yes, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the challenge of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a factory team supported by the corporate entity, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an Formula One team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you rarely get the opportunity to change team culture.”
With each day that passes focus are more focused on the impending critical moment in the Australian GP and goals are being handled.
“One must presume that any incoming team joining the grid is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon stated recently and while Chester shared this view he thought the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So we show up and we function efficiently. We want to show that this is a professional operation doing the correct procedures on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression after that.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Drive
In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a pair remarkable for their priceless expertise in performing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and we expect probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I am confident with this structure, with this team, these personnel, there is every reason that we can't manage to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with staff now up to over 400 and planned to attain the target of 600 members swiftly. In addition to their present headquarters at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of building an HQ at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to manufacture the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex organisation, different from the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred to.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” said Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we know how tough it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of NASA's, where there were a range of specialist groups all focusing on various components of the program across a different facilities.
“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that manager consults a leader in another department, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” says Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to handle things directly. Eliminating management approval for each action is much smoother and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this flexible approach will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is no little amount on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta
