Approximately twelve months previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the official approval as the world of Formula One's newest participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from nothing has required a intense pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport arrives on Vegas this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be held in the US, with around 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are cognizant there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed team in March 2023 not long after it was formed, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its core ever since and gets a amused expression when thinking about the ride.
“There might be a short period reflecting at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what the team has created in under three years,’” he notes. “And then the next minute you consider: ‘Well, there is still a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the task of launching the all-American Cadillac brand, a factory team backed by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Creating an Formula One team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you won't have the possibility to transform team culture.”
With every day that passes thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad coming in is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Chester echoed this he felt the organization had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that we’re a proper team executing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we want to show improvement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Effort
In late summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem notable for their vast knowledge in competing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We face a mountain of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a difficult start, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, these personnel, there is every reason that we can't manage to advance swiftly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in top gear, with employees now up to more than 400 and planned to reach the goal of 600 members rapidly. Alongside their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of finishing an headquarters at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to build the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex organization, different from the trend in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred.
Space Mission Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” stated Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British GP in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how tough it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all tackling different aspects of the project across a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a process where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their team leader, that manager talks to a leader in another department, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” says Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to handle things directly. Eliminating managerial sign-off for all decisions is so much cleaner and faster.”
The Future
The success of this nimble strategy will be tested in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a considerable amount on the line for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
