Approximately a full year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the go-ahead as F1's latest entry for 2026. Building the team from nothing has involved a hectic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the campaign to be staged in the United States, with around a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent project in March 2023 not long after it was formed, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core ever since and gets a knowing grin when considering the journey.
“You might get a short period reflecting at what you’ve done and think: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he says. “Then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yeah, there is still a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Creating an grand prix team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you don’t get the chance to transform cultural approach.”
With each passing day that elapses thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the looming moment of truth in the Australian GP and targets are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any incoming team joining the grid is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon commented recently and while Nick Chester shared this view he felt the squad had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So we arrive and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the race track. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we will focus on improvement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Effort
In August they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo notable for their priceless expertise in performing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Bottas echoed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We face a massive task to do, and we expect most likely a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. In my view with this setup, with these individuals, these personnel, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with staff now at over 400 and planned to reach the objective of 600 members swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the midst of building an headquarters at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are building the plant to build the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – until then they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate organisation, different from the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred.
NASA Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” said Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how challenging it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, instead of the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all focusing on distinct elements of the project across a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a process where an issue arises and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor consults a manager at a different location, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” explains the CTO. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Moving away from management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a considerable amount riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
