A little more than one year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the green light as the world of Formula One's latest entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from scratch has required a frenetic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As the sport converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the season finale of the season to be staged in the United States, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed team in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was established, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its center since then and enjoys a amused expression when thinking about the ride.
“There might be a brief moment looking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in less than three years,’” he says. “And then the very next instant you consider: ‘Well, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Chester had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the iconic American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the corporate entity, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an grand prix team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you don’t get the possibility to change organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that goes by minds are more focused on the looming critical moment in the Australian GP and expectations are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated recently and while Nick Chester shared this view he thought the team had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we turn up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the race track. Once we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate improvement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Effort
In August they signed Checo Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a tandem distinguished for their priceless expertise in operating at the front in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver expressed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a tough opening, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I am confident given this organization, with this group, these personnel, there is every reason that we can't manage to progress rapidly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To that end recruitment has been in full swing, with staff now up to more than 400 and intended to hit the objective of 600 members rapidly. In addition to their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the process of completing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the new engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, different from the direction in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, rather than the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the project across a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a procedure where an issue arises and they report it to their manager, that manager consults a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” says Chester. “We give authority to team members to take charge. Eliminating managerial sign-off for all decisions is far more efficient and faster.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this nimble strategy will be proven in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a significant degree riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the young American Colton Herta
