A little more than twelve months in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the official approval as the world of Formula One's latest participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from nothing has involved a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac are aware time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be held in the US, with around three months to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic team in early 2023 soon after it was formed, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core since then and enjoys a wry smile when reflecting on the ride.
“There might be a short period reflecting at what you’ve done and think: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we have built in less than three years,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you consider: ‘Well, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious years of 2005/2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the task of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the owner, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an Formula One team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you won't have the chance to transform organizational mindset.”
With every day that goes by minds are increasingly concentrated on the impending decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being handled.
“One must presume that any incoming team joining the grid is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” the team principal stated recently and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the team had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we turn up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation executing the correct procedures on the race track. When we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we want to show forward movement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Push
In August they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their invaluable experience in competing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the mood of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a huge amount 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 remain at the rear. In my view with this setup, with these individuals, these personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with employees now up to over 400 and planned to hit the target of 600 members quickly. Alongside their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of completing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, different from the direction in the sport for more centralization, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester alluded.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated Graeme Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Well, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of project teams all focusing on distinct elements of the mission in a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they report it to their team leader, that supervisor consults a supervisor in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” says the CTO. “Therefore we enable staff to take charge. Eliminating managerial sign-off for everything is far more efficient and quicker.”
The Future
The success of this agile methodology will be tested in the pressure of racing next season and there is no little amount at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
