Approximately twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the official approval as Formula One’s newest entrant for the 2026 season. Building the team from the ground up has involved a hectic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 converges on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the season to be hosted in the US, with just over 100 days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed project in the spring of 2023 not long after it was established, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its center ever since and has a knowing grin when thinking about the experience.
“You might get a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “But then the next minute you realize: ‘Yes, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's victorious seasons of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical development at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the task of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Building an grand prix team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you rarely get the opportunity to change cultural approach.”
With each passing day that goes by minds are increasingly concentrated on the approaching decisive point in Australia and targets are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team joining the grid is going to be last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated this year and while the CTO shared this view he thought the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So we arrive and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team doing the correct procedures on the track. After we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show improvement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Effort
In August they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a duo notable for their vast knowledge in operating at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas reflected the attitude of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We face a massive task to do, and we expect almost certainly a difficult start, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to finish last. I believe with this structure, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to the front and taste victory.”
To that end hiring has been in full swing, with employees now up to over 400 and intended to reach the target of six hundred quickly. In addition to their present headquarters at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of building an headquarters at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are developing the facility to produce the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex organisation, different from the trend in the sport for more centralization, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Chester alluded.
Space Mission Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” said the team principal just before the British GP in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, rather than the traditional management structure, a flat management structure akin to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all working on various components of the program across a different facilities.
“When you must follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their manager, that manager communicates with a manager somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is much smoother and quicker.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is no little amount at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the young American Colton Herta
