Approximately twelve months previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last given the green light as F1's most recent entry for the 2026 season. Building the team from the ground up has entailed a frenetic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 descends on Vegas this race weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be staged in the US, with just over three months to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are cognizant there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent team in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and has a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“There might be a brief moment thinking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you think: ‘Yeah, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical development at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the mission of introducing the all-American Cadillac brand, a works entry sponsored by the owner, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an F1 team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you won't have the opportunity to change team culture.”
With each day that goes by focus are increasingly concentrated on the impending decisive point in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.
“You have to assume that any new team coming in is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” the team principal stated recently and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the team had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he says. “So that we arrive and we operate well. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team doing the proper actions on the track. Once we prove that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate improvement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Effort
In the summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a pair remarkable for their priceless expertise in performing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas echoed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. In my view given this organization, with this group, these personnel, there’s no reason why we can't manage to advance swiftly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in top gear, with staff now reaching over 400 and intended to reach the objective of 600 members swiftly. Complementing their current base at Silverstone, the team are in the phase of completing an headquarters at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are building the facility to produce the power unit, set for 2029 – for now they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex structure, different from the direction in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which the CTO alluded.
Apollo Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” remarked the team principal ahead of the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we understand how difficult it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all working on different aspects of the mission across a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a process where someone has a problem and they report it to their supervisor, that supervisor consults a supervisor somewhere else, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” explains Chester. “So we empower staff to really get on with it. Moving away from hierarchical consent for everything is so much cleaner and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this agile strategy will be tested in the heat of competition next season and there is a significant degree on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the young American Colton Herta
