Just over a full year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the green light as F1's most recent participant for 2026. Establishing the organization from scratch has required a intense operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 descends on Las Vegas this weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be hosted in the America, with around three months to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic team in March 2023 not long after it was formed, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center since then and gets a wry smile when considering the journey.
“There might be five minutes reflecting at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in less than three years,’” he notes. “But then the following moment you realize: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Chester achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious years of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical development at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has quite compared with the task of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a works entry backed by the owner, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Building an grand prix team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you won't have the chance to transform organizational mindset.”
With every day that goes by focus are more focused on the approaching critical moment in Australia and goals are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad coming in is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal commented earlier this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we should be there,” he says. “So that we arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation executing the correct procedures on the race track. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Push
In August they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair distinguished for their priceless expertise in operating at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be probably a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I believe with this setup, with these individuals, these people, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to the front and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in top gear, with employees now up to more than 400 and intended to hit the goal of 600 rapidly. In addition to their present headquarters at the UK base, the squad are in the process of finishing an HQ at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are developing the facility to manufacture the 2029 engine, planned for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, different from the direction in the sport for more centralization, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred.
NASA Inspiration
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” said the team principal just before the British GP in July. “We are pragmatic, we understand how challenging it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of project teams all working on various components of the project in a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a procedure where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their team leader, that manager talks to a leader at a different location, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” notes the CTO. “We give authority to people to take charge. Moving away from management approval for everything is far more efficient and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this agile strategy will be evaluated in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is no little amount riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
