A little more than a full year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately given the go-ahead as F1's most recent entrant for 2026. Building the team from scratch has required a intense work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 converges on Vegas this race weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be hosted in the America, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed operation in early 2023 soon after it was formed, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core since then and has a amused expression when thinking about the experience.
“You can have five minutes reflecting at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yes, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Task
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the task of launching the all-American Cadillac marque, a factory team supported by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Building an Formula One team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the opportunity to alter team culture.”
With each passing day that goes by minds are increasingly concentrated on the approaching moment of truth in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.
“One must presume that any new team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal noted earlier this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he believed the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that we’re a proper team performing the right things on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we want to show improvement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Effort
In the summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their invaluable experience in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver expressed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I believe with this structure, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we can't manage to advance swiftly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with personnel now at more than 400 and scheduled to reach the target of 600 rapidly. In addition to their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of completing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to build the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate organisation, contrary to the trend in the sport for increased consolidation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Chester referred to.
Apollo Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” said Lowdon ahead of the British GP in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how challenging it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all focusing on distinct elements of the program across a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their manager, that supervisor talks to a supervisor in another department, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “So we empower staff to take charge. Eliminating managerial sign-off for each action is far more efficient and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this agile strategy will be evaluated in the pressure of racing next season and there is a significant degree at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
