Approximately a full year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the green light as F1's newest entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from scratch has required a hectic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be hosted in the US, with just over three months to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are aware there will not be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic operation in early 2023 soon after it was established, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart since then and has a knowing grin when considering the journey.
“You can have a brief moment thinking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “Then the next minute you consider: ‘Well, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, GM, into Formula One.
“Building an grand prix team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you don’t get the chance to change team culture.”
With every day that elapses thoughts are more focused on the approaching critical moment in Melbourne and expectations are being handled.
“You have to assume that any incoming team joining the grid is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” the team principal noted recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he felt the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So that we turn up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation executing the right things on the track. Once we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on forward movement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Effort
In August they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo notable for their vast knowledge in performing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver reflected the mood of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and we expect probably a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I am confident given this organization, with these individuals, this staff, there is every reason that we can't manage to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with personnel now up to more than 400 and intended to attain the goal of 600 swiftly. Complementing their present headquarters at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of building an HQ at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to build the new engine, set for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, at odds with the movement in F1 for more centralization, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred.
NASA Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” remarked Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in the summer. “We’re realistic, we recognize how challenging it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all working on distinct elements of the program across a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a procedure where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that manager communicates with a supervisor in another department, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “We give authority to team members to really get on with it. Moving away from managerial sign-off for each action is far more efficient and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this agile approach will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a significant degree at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta
