Just over a full year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the official approval as Formula One’s latest entry for 2026. Establishing the squad from scratch has entailed a frenetic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As the sport descends on Las Vegas this weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the campaign to be hosted in the US, with approximately 100 days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent project in the spring of 2023 soon after it was established, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and enjoys a knowing grin when considering the experience.
“You can have five minutes reflecting at what you’ve done and go: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in under three years,’” Chester states. “And then the following moment you consider: ‘Yeah, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's victorious seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the mission of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a factory team backed by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Building an F1 team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you don’t get the chance to alter cultural approach.”
With every day that passes focus are sharper on the impending decisive point in Australia and goals are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” the team principal noted recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he says. “So that we show up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team performing the right things on the race track. When we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement after that.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Drive
In August they contracted Checo Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a duo remarkable for their priceless expertise in performing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Bottas echoed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and we expect probably a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, this staff, there is every reason that we won't be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in full swing, with personnel now up to over 400 and planned to hit the target of 600 members swiftly. Alongside their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the process of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are developing the facility to produce the power unit, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the trend in F1 for greater centralisation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which the CTO alluded.
NASA Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” said the team principal shortly before the British Grand Prix in July. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how difficult it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all focusing on distinct elements of the mission across a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a process where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their team leader, that manager talks to a supervisor in another department, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” notes Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to take charge. Eliminating managerial sign-off for each action is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
The Future
The efficacy of this agile methodology will be proven in the heat of competition next season and there is a significant degree on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
