Approximately one year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the go-ahead as Formula One’s latest entry for 2026. Building the squad from nothing has required a frenetic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport descends on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the season finale of the season to be held in the US, with around 100 days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the nascent team in the spring of 2023 not long after it was established, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart ever since and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the journey.
“You can have a short period looking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what the team has created in under three years,’” he says. “And then the following moment you consider: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
The CTO had success at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical development at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the task of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a factory team supported by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Establishing an F1 team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you won't have the chance to transform organizational mindset.”
With every day that goes by minds are increasingly concentrated on the approaching moment of truth in Australia and targets are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad entering the sport is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Chester shared this view he believed the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we turn up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team executing the right things on the track. When we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Effort
In August they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem notable for their priceless expertise in competing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver reflected the mood of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a difficult start, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I believe given this organization, with this team, these personnel, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to the front and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in full swing, with personnel now at more than 400 and planned to attain the objective of 600 members swiftly. Alongside their current base at Silverstone, the team are in the midst of finishing an main base at Fishers in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to manufacture the power unit, planned for the 2029 season – for now they will use power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a complex structure, different from the movement in F1 for more centralization, and has led to the innovative team culture to which the CTO alluded.
Apollo Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated the team principal shortly before the British Grand Prix in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, instead of the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of specialist groups all tackling different aspects of the project across a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a process where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their team leader, that leader talks to a manager at a different location, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” explains Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to really get on with it. Moving away from managerial sign-off for each action is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is no little amount riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
