Just over twelve months in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the go-ahead as F1's most recent entry for 2026. Establishing the organization from nothing has entailed a intense pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be staged in the America, with approximately a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are cognizant there will not be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent team in March 2023 shortly after it was established, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart ever since and enjoys a knowing grin when thinking about the ride.
“There might be a brief moment reflecting at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we have built in less than three years,’” Chester states. “And then the very next instant you consider: ‘Well, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in Alonso's title-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the mission of bringing the all-American Cadillac marque, a works entry backed by the owner, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you won't have the chance to alter team culture.”
With each passing day that passes focus are more focused on the impending decisive point in the Australian GP and expectations are being managed.
“One must presume that any incoming team entering the sport is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented recently and while Nick Chester echoed this he believed the team had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we turn up and we function efficiently. We want to show that we’re a proper team executing the proper actions on the circuit. When we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we will focus on forward movement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Effort
In August they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their vast knowledge in performing at the front in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver echoed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, these people, there is every reason that we can't manage to advance swiftly to the front and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with personnel now at over 400 and intended to hit the goal of six hundred swiftly. Alongside their current base at Silverstone, the squad are in the midst of building an HQ at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are building the facility to produce the new engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will run power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, different from the movement in the sport for more centralization, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Chester alluded.
Space Mission Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” remarked Lowdon just before the British GP in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we know how tough it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of project teams all tackling distinct elements of the project in a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a process where an issue arises and they raise it up to their team leader, that manager consults a leader in another department, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” says Nick Chester. “We give authority to team members to take charge. Eliminating hierarchical consent for everything is so much cleaner and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be proven in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a significant degree riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the young American Colton Herta
