Just over twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the official approval as Formula One’s most recent entry for 2026. Building the squad from scratch has involved a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be hosted in the US, with approximately 100 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 monumental task, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the nascent operation in March 2023 not long after it was established, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center from that point and gets a amused expression when thinking about the journey.
“You might get five minutes reflecting at what you’ve done and say: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in under three years,’” he says. “But then the next minute you consider: ‘Yes, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical development at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has quite compared with the mission of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the parent company, GM, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you don’t get the possibility to change team culture.”
With each passing day that goes by focus are sharper on the impending critical moment in Australia and expectations are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad joining the grid is going to be last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Chester shared this view he felt the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So we show up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team executing the right things on the race track. Once we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on improvement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Push
In the summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver expressed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and we expect most likely a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to finish last. In my view given this organization, with this group, this staff, there’s no reason why we can't manage to advance swiftly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in full swing, with personnel now up to over 400 and planned to reach the goal of six hundred quickly. Complementing their present headquarters at Silverstone, the organization are in the process of completing an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are constructing the facility to manufacture the 2029 engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – for now they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a sophisticated structure, contrary to the trend in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred to.
NASA Model
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said the team principal shortly before the British Grand Prix in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how tough it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of project teams all focusing on different aspects of the program across a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a procedure where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their supervisor, that leader talks to a supervisor in another department, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” explains Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to really get on with it. Avoiding management approval for all decisions is so much cleaner and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this nimble approach will be tested in the heat of competition next season and there is a considerable amount at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
