Just over twelve months in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the official approval as Formula One’s latest entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from the ground up has required a hectic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 arrives on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be hosted in the United States, with around 100 days to go before they take to the track 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 never-ending task, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic project in March 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and has a knowing grin when considering the ride.
“You might get five minutes looking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the next minute you think: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical direction at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has truly matched the challenge of introducing the all-American Cadillac marque, a factory team sponsored by the owner, GM, into Formula One.
“Creating an grand prix team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you won't have the chance to transform cultural approach.”
With every day that passes thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the looming critical moment in Australia and expectations are being managed.
“One must presume that any new team coming in is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon commented this year and while the CTO shared this view he believed the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “In order that we turn up and we operate well. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender executing the right things on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate progression from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Drive
In August they recruited Checo Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their vast knowledge in operating at the front in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver expressed the mood of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be probably a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I am confident given this organization, with this team, this staff, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to the front and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with employees now up to over 400 and planned to hit the goal of six hundred swiftly. In addition to their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of building an headquarters at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to manufacture the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – until then they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex structure, contrary to the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester alluded.
NASA Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we know how tough it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of project teams all working on various components of the program at a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a process where someone has a problem and they report it to their supervisor, that manager communicates with a manager at a different location, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” explains Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to handle things directly. Moving away from hierarchical consent for each action is much smoother and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this flexible strategy will be proven in the pressure of racing next season and there is a considerable amount at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
