Just over twelve months in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the official approval as F1's latest participant for the 2026 season. Building the squad from nothing has involved a intense work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be staged in the US, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent project in the spring of 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart since then and enjoys a amused expression when considering the journey.
“There might be a brief moment reflecting at what you’ve done and think: ‘Wow, how impressive what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the following moment you consider: ‘Yeah, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has truly matched the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac marque, a factory team backed by the parent company, GM, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you don’t get the possibility to alter organizational mindset.”
With each day that passes focus are more focused on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.
“You have to assume that any new team joining the grid is going to be last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the team had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we show up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team executing the correct procedures on the track. When we prove that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Push
In late summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a tandem notable for their vast knowledge in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a massive task to do, and we expect most likely a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I am confident with this setup, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we won't be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To that end hiring has been in top gear, with personnel now up to in excess of 400 and scheduled to attain the target of six hundred quickly. Alongside their present headquarters at the UK base, the organization are in the midst of finishing an headquarters at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are building the center to build the new engine, set for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex organization, contrary to the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has led to the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred to.
NASA Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” stated the team principal ahead of the British GP in July. “We are pragmatic, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a range of project teams all tackling various components of the project in a different facilities.
“When you must follow a protocol where an issue arises and they raise it up to their team leader, that leader consults a manager in another department, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” notes Chester. “We give authority to team members to take charge. Eliminating management approval for all decisions is so much cleaner and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this agile methodology will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a considerable amount riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
