Just over one year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the green light as Formula One’s latest participant for the 2026 season. Building the team from nothing has involved a frenetic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 descends on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be hosted in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent project in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its center from that point and gets a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“You can have five minutes looking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the following moment you realize: ‘Yeah, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
Chester had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious years of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical development at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has truly matched the task of bringing the all-American Cadillac marque, a factory team sponsored by the corporate entity, GM, into Formula One.
“Creating an grand prix team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you won't have the chance to transform team culture.”
With every day that elapses minds are increasingly concentrated on the impending decisive point in Australia and goals are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any incoming team joining the grid is going to be last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he thought the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So that we show up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team doing the correct procedures on the track. After we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we want to show forward movement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Effort
In late summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a duo remarkable for their priceless expertise in operating at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver echoed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a tough opening, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I believe with this setup, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we can't manage to advance swiftly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To that end hiring has been in overdrive, with personnel now up to in excess of 400 and planned to reach the objective of 600 rapidly. Alongside their current base at Silverstone, the squad are in the midst of finishing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are building the facility to build the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate structure, at odds with the direction in F1 for greater centralisation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester alluded.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” said Lowdon shortly before the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we know how tough it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. OK, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all focusing on various components of the program in a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their manager, that leader consults a manager at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” notes Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to handle things directly. Avoiding management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the pressure of racing next season and there is a significant degree at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta
