Approximately twelve months in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the official approval as F1's most recent participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from nothing has involved a intense pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the campaign to be held in the US, with around 100 days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic project in early 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart from that point and gets a amused expression when considering the journey.
“There might be a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Wow, what an achievement what the team has created in less than three years,’” he says. “But then the following moment you consider: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the task of bringing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an grand prix team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you won't have the chance to alter team culture.”
With each day that goes by minds are increasingly concentrated on the approaching decisive point in Melbourne and goals are being handled.
“One must presume that any new team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated recently and while Chester shared this view he thought the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate 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 doing the correct procedures on the race track. Once we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Push
In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a duo notable for their vast knowledge in competing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and it’s going to be most likely a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I believe given this organization, with this group, this staff, there is every reason that we can't manage to get relatively quickly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with staff now up to over 400 and intended to reach the objective of six hundred rapidly. In addition to their present headquarters at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of finishing an headquarters at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are constructing the facility to manufacture the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – until then they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, contrary to the movement in F1 for greater centralisation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred to.
NASA Model
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said Graeme Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in July. “We are pragmatic, we understand how tough it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a decentralized management comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of project teams all focusing on various components of the program across a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where an issue arises and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor communicates with a supervisor at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” explains Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to take charge. Moving away from hierarchical consent for each action is so much cleaner and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this agile methodology will be evaluated in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a significant degree at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
