Approximately a full year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the green light as Formula One’s most recent entry for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from nothing has involved a hectic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As F1 converges on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be staged in the US, with around 100 days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic operation in the spring of 2023 soon after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart from that point and gets a amused expression when thinking about the ride.
“You might get a short period looking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “But then the next minute you think: ‘Yes, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Chester had success at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a factory team backed by the owner, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an Formula One team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you won't have the chance to alter organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that passes thoughts are sharper on the impending critical moment in the Australian GP and goals are being handled.
“You have to assume that any incoming team entering the sport is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” the team principal noted earlier this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he thought the squad had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he says. “So that we show up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team performing the right things on the track. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we will focus on progression subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Push
In August they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a tandem notable for their vast knowledge in operating at the front in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Bottas echoed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to finish last. I am confident with this setup, with these individuals, this staff, there’s no reason why we can't manage to advance swiftly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with staff now at over 400 and intended to reach the objective of 600 swiftly. Alongside their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the process of finishing an headquarters at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to build the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, different from the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred to.
NASA Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” remarked the team principal shortly before the British GP in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, instead of the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of project teams all tackling various components of the project at a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where an issue arises and they report it to their team leader, that supervisor communicates with a manager at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “Therefore we enable team members to handle things directly. Eliminating managerial sign-off for each action is far more efficient and quicker.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this nimble methodology will be proven in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a significant degree at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
