Just over a full year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the official approval as the world of Formula One's latest participant for 2026. Establishing the organization from nothing has involved a hectic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the championship to be held in the US, with approximately a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic project in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core from that point and has a wry smile when thinking about the experience.
“You might get five minutes thinking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Amazing, how impressive what the team has created in less than three years,’” he notes. “And then the next minute you think: ‘Well, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
Nick Chester had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the task of launching the all-American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the parent company, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an Formula One team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you won't have the possibility to change team culture.”
With every day that goes by focus are sharper on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and expectations are being managed.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So that we arrive and we operate well. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation executing the proper actions on the race track. When we prove that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on improvement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Effort
In August they recruited Checo Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a duo distinguished for their invaluable experience in competing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be probably a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. In my view given this organization, with this team, these people, there is every reason that we won't be able to progress rapidly to the front and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in full swing, with employees now reaching over 400 and scheduled to attain the objective of 600 rapidly. In addition to their present headquarters at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of completing an HQ at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are constructing the center to manufacture the power unit, set for the 2029 season – until then they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organization, contrary to the direction in the sport for increased consolidation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Chester alluded.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we understand how challenging it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, instead of the traditional management structure, a decentralized management comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the project at a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a protocol where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their manager, that manager talks to a manager in another department, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” explains the CTO. “We give authority to people to handle things directly. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is far more efficient and quicker.”
The Future
The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be tested in the pressure of racing next season and there is no little amount at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
