Just over one year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the go-ahead as Formula One’s latest entrant for 2026. Constructing the squad from scratch has required a frenetic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport converges on Vegas this race weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the season to be held in the America, with around 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the nascent operation in March 2023 soon after it was formed, when the squad 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 can have a short period thinking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in less than three years,’” he says. “Then the very next instant you think: ‘Yeah, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in charge of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the all-American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Building an grand prix team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you don’t get the possibility to change cultural approach.”
With every day that elapses minds are sharper on the impending moment of truth in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.
“You have to assume that any new team joining the grid is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal commented recently and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team executing the correct procedures on the race track. Once we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show forward movement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Push
In the summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem notable for their invaluable experience in operating at the front in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to stay at the back. In my view with this setup, with this group, these people, it's entirely possible we can't manage to advance swiftly to the front and achieve good results.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with personnel now at more than 400 and intended to reach the objective of six hundred rapidly. Alongside their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the process of building an headquarters at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the center to manufacture the 2029 engine, set for the 2029 season – for now they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organization, different from the direction in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred to.
Apollo Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” said Graeme Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we understand how difficult it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, instead of the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of specialist groups all focusing on different aspects of the program across a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a protocol where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their supervisor, that leader consults a leader at a different location, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” says the CTO. “So we empower team members to take charge. Eliminating managerial sign-off for all decisions is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this nimble methodology will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta
