A little more than a full year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the green light as Formula One’s newest entrant for 2026. Constructing the team from the ground up has entailed a frenetic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the season finale of the campaign to be staged in the United States, with around 100 days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic project in early 2023 shortly after it was established, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its center ever since and gets a amused expression when reflecting on the ride.
“There might be a short period reflecting at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Incredible, how impressive what the team has created in under three years,’” Chester states. “But then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious seasons of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac brand, a works entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Establishing an F1 team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you won't have the opportunity to change cultural approach.”
With every day that elapses thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the approaching critical moment in Australia and goals are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any new team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while Chester echoed this he felt the squad had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So we turn up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team performing the proper actions on the circuit. After we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate progression from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Effort
In August they contracted Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo distinguished for their vast knowledge in operating at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Bottas echoed the mood of combative optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a tough opening, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to finish last. In my view with this structure, with this team, these personnel, it's entirely possible we won't be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in top gear, with personnel now reaching in excess of 400 and planned to attain the objective of 600 members quickly. In addition to their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the midst of building an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to manufacture the power unit, scheduled for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex organisation, at odds with the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which the CTO alluded.
Space Mission Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” said the team principal just before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of project teams all working on different aspects of the project across a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a process where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their supervisor, that leader communicates with a supervisor in another department, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” says Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to really get on with it. Avoiding management approval for everything is so much cleaner and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this nimble approach will be evaluated in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a significant degree riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
