A little more than one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the go-ahead as Formula One’s most recent entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from the ground up has entailed a intense pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be held in the US, with approximately 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed operation in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was created, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart from that point and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the journey.
“You can have a brief moment thinking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in under three years,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you realize: ‘Well, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Nick Chester had success at Renault in Alonso's victorious years of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the challenge of launching the iconic American Cadillac name, a works entry sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors, into F1.
“Creating an grand prix team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the opportunity to change team culture.”
With every day that passes thoughts are sharper on the impending critical moment in Australia and goals are being handled.
“You have to assume that any incoming team coming in is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal commented this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he felt the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team performing the proper actions on the race track. After we prove that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Drive
In August they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their vast knowledge in competing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the mood of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We face a massive task 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 remain at the rear. In my view with this setup, with this group, this staff, there’s no reason why we won't be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in overdrive, with personnel now reaching more than 400 and planned to reach the target of 600 swiftly. Alongside their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of building an headquarters at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are constructing the facility to manufacture the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex organization, contrary to the direction in the sport for more centralization, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
Space Mission Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” stated Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how tough it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all tackling various components of the mission across a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a process where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their supervisor, that leader consults a manager somewhere else, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” notes Chester. “We give authority to team members to really get on with it. Avoiding hierarchical consent for all decisions is far more efficient and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this nimble approach will be tested in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is no little amount at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
