A little more than a full year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the green light as F1's most recent entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from nothing has involved a frenetic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 descends on Las Vegas this weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be held in the US, with approximately a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic project in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center ever since and gets a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“You might get a brief moment reflecting at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in under three years,’” he notes. “But then the next minute you think: ‘Well, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Task
Nick Chester had success at Renault in Alonso's victorious seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the challenge of launching the all-American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the corporate entity, GM, into F1.
“Creating an F1 team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you won't have the opportunity to alter team culture.”
With every day that passes thoughts are more focused on the impending decisive point in the Australian GP and expectations are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad coming in is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon stated this year and while the CTO shared this view he thought the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we turn up and we operate well. 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 will focus on improvement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Drive
In late summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a duo remarkable for their vast knowledge in operating at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver expressed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and we expect probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I believe with this setup, with these individuals, these people, it's entirely possible we won't be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in overdrive, with staff now up to more than 400 and intended to reach the objective of 600 swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to build the power unit, scheduled for the 2029 season – for now they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex structure, different from the movement in the sport for increased consolidation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred to.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” remarked the team principal just before the British Grand Prix in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how tough it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all working on distinct elements of the program across a different facilities.
“When you must follow a process where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their manager, that manager talks to a leader in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” says Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to really get on with it. Moving away from management approval for everything is far more efficient and more rapid.”
The Future
The efficacy of this nimble methodology will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a significant degree at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have taken on as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
