A little more than a full year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately given the official approval as the world of Formula One's newest participant for the 2026 season. Building the squad from the ground up has involved a intense pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As F1 descends on Vegas this race weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be hosted in the America, with around a hundred 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 made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed project in the spring of 2023 not long after it was established, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its center from that point and has a wry smile when considering the ride.
“There might be a brief moment looking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in under three years,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you consider: ‘Yeah, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Nick Chester had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious years of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical direction at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the task of bringing the iconic American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Establishing an grand prix team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you won't have the possibility to alter team culture.”
With each passing day that elapses minds are more focused on the impending critical moment in the Australian GP and targets are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team coming in is going to be last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the team had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we arrive and we perform competently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the race track. When we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we will focus on improvement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Drive
In the 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 top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver expressed the mood of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I believe with this setup, with these individuals, these personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in full swing, with personnel now up to in excess of 400 and planned to hit the goal of six hundred quickly. Complementing their present headquarters at Silverstone, the squad are in the process of completing an HQ at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the facility to produce the new engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – for now they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organization, at odds with the direction in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred to.
Space Mission Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” remarked the team principal just before the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we know how tough it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, instead of the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management akin to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all working on distinct elements of the program at a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they report it to their manager, that manager communicates with a supervisor at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” explains Chester. “Therefore we enable people to take charge. Moving away from managerial sign-off for each action is far more efficient and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this nimble approach will be evaluated in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a considerable amount riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
