Just over a full year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from scratch has involved a frenetic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 converges on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be staged in the United States, with around a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in the spring of 2023 not long after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center from that point and enjoys a wry smile when considering the ride.
“You might get a short period reflecting at what you’ve done and think: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the next minute you realize: ‘Yes, there is still a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
The CTO had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the task of bringing the all-American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Building an Formula One team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you won't have the opportunity to transform cultural approach.”
With each day that elapses thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the approaching moment of truth in the Australian GP and targets are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he believed the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we should be there,” he says. “So that we show up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation doing the proper actions on the track. Once we prove that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression from there on.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Drive
In August they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair notable for their priceless expertise in performing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the mood of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to finish last. In my view given this organization, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we won't be able to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with employees now at in excess of 400 and scheduled to reach the goal of 600 members rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of completing an HQ at Fishers in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are building the facility to build the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organisation, at odds with the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
NASA Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” stated the team principal ahead of the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we understand how challenging it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, instead of the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all tackling different aspects of the program across a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a process where an issue arises and they raise it up to their manager, that supervisor consults a supervisor somewhere else, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” says Chester. “We give authority to staff to really get on with it. Eliminating hierarchical consent for everything is much smoother and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this nimble approach will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is no little amount on the line for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
