Approximately a full year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the official approval as Formula One’s latest entry for the 2026 season. Building the team from the ground up has required a frenetic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on Vegas this weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be staged in the United States, with approximately 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent operation in early 2023 shortly after it was established, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center ever since and has a knowing grin when considering the ride.
“There might be five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in under three years,’” Chester states. “And then the next minute you realize: ‘Yeah, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Nick Chester had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the task of bringing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Building an F1 team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you don’t get the chance to change cultural approach.”
With each passing day that elapses focus are more focused on the approaching moment of truth in Melbourne and goals are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any new 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 earlier this year and while the CTO echoed this he believed the squad had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So we show up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender executing the right things on the track. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we want to show forward movement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive
In the summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for the 2026 season, a duo notable for their invaluable experience in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Bottas echoed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. In my view given this organization, with these individuals, this staff, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in full swing, with employees now at more than 400 and intended to attain the goal of 600 members rapidly. Alongside their present headquarters at the UK base, the team are in the process of building an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are building the plant to build the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, at odds with the trend in F1 for increased consolidation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Chester referred to.
NASA Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” said Lowdon just before the British GP in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all focusing on distinct elements of the mission at a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a procedure where an issue arises and they report it to their team leader, that manager consults a supervisor somewhere else, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” explains Nick Chester. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Avoiding hierarchical consent for each action is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this agile approach will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a considerable amount riding on this for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
