Approximately twelve months in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the go-ahead as Formula One’s newest entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from the ground up has involved a frenetic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As the sport descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be held in the United States, with around three months to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed team in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was established, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its center since then and enjoys a amused expression when considering the journey.
“You can have a short period thinking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in under three years,’” Chester states. “But then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Nick Chester had success at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has been quite like the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a factory team supported by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an Formula One team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you won't have the chance to change team culture.”
With every day that goes by focus are sharper on the looming decisive point in Melbourne and expectations are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team joining the grid is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal stated recently and while Nick Chester echoed this he thought the organization had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove 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 executing the correct procedures on the track. When we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on progression from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Push
In late summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo distinguished for their vast knowledge in performing at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas echoed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a massive task to do, and we expect most likely a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. In my view given this organization, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we can't manage to progress rapidly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in full swing, with employees now at more than 400 and scheduled to reach the target of 600 swiftly. Complementing their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to build the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will run power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organization, different from the trend in the sport for increased consolidation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Chester referred to.
Space Mission Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” stated Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, rather than the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all tackling different aspects of the project in a different facilities.
“When you must follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their team leader, that supervisor talks to a supervisor at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” says the CTO. “So we empower team members to really get on with it. Moving away from management approval for each action is much smoother and quicker.”
The Future
The success of this agile approach will be tested in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is no little amount on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
