Approximately one year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the official approval as Formula One’s newest entrant for 2026. Constructing the squad from scratch has involved a intense work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport arrives on Vegas this weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the season to be hosted in the America, with around a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the nascent operation in March 2023 not long after it was established, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center since then and enjoys a knowing grin when considering the experience.
“You might get a brief moment looking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in less than three years,’” he notes. “Then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
Nick Chester had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac name, a works entry supported by the owner, GM, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you don’t get the possibility to change team culture.”
With each day that passes minds are increasingly concentrated on the impending decisive point in Australia and expectations are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any incoming team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted recently and while Nick Chester shared this view he believed the team had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So we show up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender doing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on progression after that.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Effort
In the summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their vast knowledge in competing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he said. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. In my view with this setup, with this team, these people, there is every reason that we can't manage to advance swiftly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in full swing, with staff now up to over 400 and planned to attain the goal of 600 rapidly. Complementing their current base at Silverstone, the squad are in the process of completing an main base at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are developing the center to produce the 2029 engine, set for the 2029 season – until then they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, contrary to the direction in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which the CTO alluded.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Lowdon just before the British GP in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we understand how tough it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, instead of the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of project teams all working on different aspects of the program across a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their manager, that manager consults a supervisor somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” explains the CTO. “So we empower people to take charge. Avoiding hierarchical consent for everything is so much cleaner and faster.”
The Future
The success of this agile approach will be tested in the pressure of racing next season and there is a considerable amount at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
