Approximately one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the go-ahead as F1's newest participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from scratch has involved a intense work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be held in the US, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic project in March 2023 not long after it was formed, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its core ever since and has a knowing grin when thinking about the journey.
“There might be a brief moment thinking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he notes. “But then the following moment you realize: ‘Well, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Alonso's victorious campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical direction at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has been quite like the challenge of bringing the iconic American Cadillac name, a works entry supported by the owner, GM, into Formula One.
“Building an grand prix team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you won't have the chance to alter team culture.”
With each day that goes by focus are sharper on the looming critical moment in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.
“One must presume that any incoming team entering the sport is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” the team principal noted recently and while the CTO echoed this he believed the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we arrive and we function efficiently. We want to show that this is a professional operation executing the right things on the race track. Once we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show forward movement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Effort
In late summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a duo distinguished for their priceless expertise in competing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the mood of combative optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he said. “We have a massive task to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I believe with this structure, with this group, these personnel, there is every reason that we can't manage to get relatively quickly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in full swing, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and intended to attain the objective of six hundred quickly. Alongside their existing facility at Silverstone, the squad are in the midst of building an headquarters at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are building the center to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate structure, at odds with the movement in F1 for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred.
Space Mission Model
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” remarked Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how difficult it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of specialist groups all focusing on various components of the project in a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a protocol where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their supervisor, that supervisor consults a leader somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” notes Nick Chester. “So we empower team members to take charge. Moving away from hierarchical consent for everything is far more efficient and more rapid.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this flexible methodology will be tested in the heat of competition next season and there is a considerable amount at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
