Just over one year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the green light as F1's latest participant for 2026. Constructing the team from scratch has involved a hectic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As the sport descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be staged in the US, with approximately 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 come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic team in March 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and enjoys a knowing grin when considering the ride.
“There might be five minutes looking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he says. “But then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Chester had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical direction at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac name, a works entry supported by the owner, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an grand prix team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you won't have the opportunity to change cultural approach.”
With each day that passes minds are sharper on the approaching critical moment in Australia and expectations are being managed.
“You have to assume that any new team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal noted earlier this year and while the CTO echoed this he felt the team had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So that we turn up and we operate well. We want to show that we are a serious contender performing the proper actions on the track. After we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on progression after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Effort
In the summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem notable for their vast knowledge in performing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver echoed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We have a massive task to do, and it will likely be probably a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, this staff, there is every reason that we can't manage to progress rapidly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To that end hiring has been in top gear, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and intended to hit the goal of 600 members swiftly. Alongside their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of building an main base at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are building the facility to manufacture the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organisation, different from the trend in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred to.
Apollo Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” remarked the team principal shortly before the British Grand Prix in July. “We are pragmatic, we understand how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, instead of the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all tackling different aspects of the mission at a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they report it to their supervisor, that supervisor communicates with a supervisor somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” says the CTO. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Moving away from managerial sign-off for each action is far more efficient and more rapid.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this flexible approach will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
