Approximately one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the green light as Formula One’s latest entrant for 2026. Constructing the squad from scratch has required a frenetic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the final race of the championship to be staged in the America, with approximately 100 days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic team in March 2023 shortly after it was created, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its core ever since and enjoys a knowing grin when considering the ride.
“You can have a brief moment thinking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Wow, what an achievement what the team has created in under three years,’” he notes. “And then the following moment you consider: ‘Well, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's victorious years of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac name, a factory team sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an F1 team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you don’t get the opportunity to transform team culture.”
With each passing day that goes by focus are increasingly concentrated on the looming moment of truth in Australia and goals are being managed.
“You have to assume that any new team coming in is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon noted earlier this year and while the CTO echoed this he felt the organization had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So that we turn up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team performing the correct procedures on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we want to show progression subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Effort
In August they recruited Checo Pérez and Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and we expect probably 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 team, these personnel, it's entirely possible we won't be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To that end hiring has been in top gear, with employees now at over 400 and intended to reach the objective of 600 members quickly. Complementing their current base at Silverstone, the team are in the process of building an main base at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are building the facility to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, at odds with the movement in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester alluded.
NASA Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” stated Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how tough it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure akin to that of NASA's, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on distinct elements of the mission across a different facilities.
“When you must follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their team leader, that supervisor talks to a leader in another department, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” explains Nick Chester. “We give authority to people to really get on with it. Moving away from hierarchical consent for all decisions is much smoother and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this agile strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a considerable amount riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
