Just over twelve months previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the green light as the world of Formula One's newest entry for 2026. Constructing the organization from scratch has involved a intense pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 arrives on Vegas this race weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be staged in the US, with approximately 100 days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time 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 adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed project in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center from that point and gets a wry smile when thinking about the journey.
“You might get five minutes looking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we have built in less than three years,’” he notes. “But then the next minute you consider: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Chester had success at Renault in Alonso's title-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the task of bringing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an Formula One team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you won't have the opportunity to transform organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that goes by minds are more focused on the looming decisive point in Australia and goals are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any incoming team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” the team principal stated recently and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “In order that we turn up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender doing the proper actions on the circuit. When we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate improvement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Drive
In August they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a duo remarkable for their priceless expertise in competing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas echoed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and we expect probably a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. In my view with this structure, with this group, this staff, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with employees now at more than 400 and planned to hit the objective of six hundred rapidly. Alongside their existing facility at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of finishing an HQ at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are building the center to manufacture the power unit, planned for the 2029 season – until then they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex structure, contrary to the trend in F1 for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Chester referred.
Apollo Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” said Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how challenging it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of project teams all working on distinct elements of the program in a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a process where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their team leader, that supervisor communicates with a leader somewhere else, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says the CTO. “So we empower staff to really get on with it. Moving away from hierarchical consent for each action is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this agile strategy will be evaluated in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a significant degree riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
