A little more than one year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the official approval as F1's newest entry for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from scratch has required a hectic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport converges on Vegas this race weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be staged in the America, with approximately a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed project in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center ever since and gets a wry smile when reflecting on the experience.
“There might be five minutes thinking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you consider: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
The CTO 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 new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the challenge of launching the all-American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Building an F1 team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you won't have the opportunity to change cultural approach.”
With each day that passes thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the approaching decisive point in Australia and goals are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad joining the grid is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented recently and while Nick Chester echoed this he believed the team had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we arrive and we operate well. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation performing the correct procedures on the race track. After we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we want to show improvement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Push
In late summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair distinguished for their invaluable experience in operating at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be probably a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I believe with this structure, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we can't manage to advance swiftly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in top gear, with staff now reaching over 400 and scheduled to attain the target of 600 quickly. In addition to their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the process of completing an HQ at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to produce the power unit, planned for the 2029 season – for now they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, at odds with the movement in F1 for more centralization, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Chester referred to.
NASA Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” said Graeme Lowdon just before the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we recognize how challenging it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of project teams all tackling various components of the program across a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a process where a challenge emerges and they report it to their team leader, that manager talks to a supervisor in another department, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” explains Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to take charge. Eliminating hierarchical consent for everything is much smoother and more rapid.”
The Future
The success of this agile strategy will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a significant degree on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
