A little more than one year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the green light as Formula One’s newest entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from the ground up has involved a intense work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As Formula One descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be hosted in the US, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the nascent project in March 2023 soon after it was created, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart since then and has a knowing grin when thinking about the journey.
“You can have a short period thinking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in under three years,’” he says. “Then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yeah, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has been quite like the challenge of launching the iconic American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an F1 team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you rarely get the possibility to alter team culture.”
With every day that passes thoughts are sharper on the impending decisive point in Australia and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad coming in is going to be last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Chester echoed this he thought the organization had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So we show up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation executing the right things on the race track. When we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement after that.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Drive
In August they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair notable for their priceless expertise in performing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas echoed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and we expect probably a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. I am confident given this organization, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we won't be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and intended to hit the target of 600 members swiftly. In addition to their present headquarters at the UK base, the team are in the phase of completing an headquarters at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will use Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organisation, contrary to the direction in F1 for increased consolidation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester alluded.
NASA Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” remarked the team principal just before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we understand how tough it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of project teams all tackling various components of the mission across a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they report it to their supervisor, that supervisor consults a supervisor somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” says Chester. “We give authority to team members to take charge. Moving away from hierarchical consent for each action is so much cleaner and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this agile approach will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a considerable amount on the line for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
