A little more than one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the official approval as F1's latest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from nothing has entailed a hectic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be held in the America, with around three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed project in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart ever since and has a amused expression when reflecting on the journey.
“You can have a brief moment thinking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the very next instant you think: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical development at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the mission of introducing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a works entry sponsored by the parent company, GM, into Formula One.
“Establishing an Formula One team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you rarely get the chance to alter team culture.”
With each passing day that elapses thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and expectations are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any new team coming in is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Chester echoed this he felt the organization 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 turn up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation executing the proper actions on the circuit. When we prove that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate progression subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Effort
In the summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a pair remarkable for their priceless expertise in competing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the attitude of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. In my view given this organization, with this team, these personnel, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To that end hiring has been in top gear, with employees now up to more than 400 and intended to attain the objective of six hundred rapidly. In addition to their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the process of completing an HQ at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the center to produce the power unit, set for the 2029 season – for now they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, contrary to the direction in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred.
NASA Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how tough it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of specialist groups all tackling different aspects of the project in a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a process where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that leader communicates with a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” notes Nick Chester. “So we empower team members to take charge. Avoiding management approval for all decisions is so much cleaner and quicker.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this nimble methodology will be tested in the heat of competition next season and there is no little amount on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
