Approximately a full year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the official approval as F1's latest entry for 2026. Establishing the team from the ground up has involved a intense pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As Formula One arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the season finale of the campaign to be staged in the US, with around three months to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, 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 technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent operation in early 2023 shortly after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart since then and gets a amused expression when reflecting on the ride.
“You can have a brief moment looking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Incredible, how impressive what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he says. “And then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yes, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the mission of launching the iconic American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Creating an F1 team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you rarely get the chance to transform cultural approach.”
With each passing day that elapses thoughts are sharper on the looming moment of truth in the Australian GP and expectations are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any incoming team entering the sport is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal noted this year and while the CTO echoed this he believed the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender doing the right things on the track. After we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on improvement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Effort
In August they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a duo notable for their invaluable experience in operating at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the mood of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to finish last. I am confident given this organization, with this group, these personnel, it's entirely possible we can't manage to progress rapidly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in full swing, with employees now reaching over 400 and intended to hit the objective of 600 members swiftly. Alongside their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the midst of building an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a intricate structure, contrary to the trend in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which the CTO alluded.
Space Mission Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” remarked the team principal ahead of the Silverstone race in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how difficult it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all focusing on various components of the mission across a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a process where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their manager, that manager consults a manager somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says the CTO. “We give authority to staff to handle things directly. Avoiding hierarchical consent for all decisions is much smoother and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this flexible strategy will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a significant degree riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
