A little more than one year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the official approval as Formula One’s latest entry for 2026. Building the team from scratch has required a frenetic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport converges on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be held in the United States, with approximately three months to go before they take to the track for the inaugural 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 task, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed team in early 2023 shortly after it was established, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center since then and gets a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“You can have a brief moment thinking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Wow, how impressive what we have built in less than three years,’” he notes. “And then the following moment you consider: ‘Well, we still have a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical direction at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has been quite like the challenge of launching the iconic American Cadillac brand, a factory team sponsored by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Building an grand prix team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you don’t get the chance to transform organizational mindset.”
With every day that passes focus are increasingly concentrated on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and expectations are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team entering the sport is going to be last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he thought the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “In order that we show up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team doing the proper actions on the track. Once we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Drive
In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in operating at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. I am confident with this setup, with this team, this staff, it's entirely possible we won't be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To that end recruitment has been in full swing, with personnel now at more than 400 and intended to reach the goal of 600 quickly. Complementing their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the phase of building an headquarters at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are building the facility to build the 2029 engine, set for the 2029 season – for now they will use power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex organisation, at odds with the direction in F1 for greater centralisation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred to.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” remarked the team principal just before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all tackling various components of the mission in a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their team leader, that leader talks to a leader in another department, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” says Nick Chester. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Eliminating managerial sign-off for everything is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this flexible approach will be tested in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
