A little more than one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the official approval as F1's newest participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from scratch has required a hectic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be staged in the US, with just over a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit 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 sisyphean task, they are cognizant there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic project in March 2023 shortly after it was established, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center from that point and enjoys a amused expression when thinking about the journey.
“You might get five minutes looking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “And then the next minute you think: ‘Yes, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Chester achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in charge of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors, into F1.
“Creating an Formula One team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you rarely get the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”
With each passing day that elapses minds are more focused on the looming critical moment in Melbourne and expectations are being handled.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is going to be last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated this year and while Chester shared this view he felt the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So we show up and we operate well. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation doing the correct procedures on the track. After we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive
In August they signed Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their priceless expertise in competing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the mood of combative optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be probably a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I am confident given this organization, with this team, this staff, it's entirely possible we won't be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in full swing, with employees now up to over 400 and scheduled to attain the target of 600 members rapidly. Alongside their existing facility at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of completing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to produce the new engine, planned for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organisation, different from the trend in the sport for more centralization, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Chester alluded.
Apollo Model
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said Graeme Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we recognize how tough it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of project teams all focusing on different aspects of the project at a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their team leader, that manager talks to a leader somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” explains Chester. “Therefore we enable people to take charge. Avoiding management approval for each action is so much cleaner and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this nimble approach will be evaluated in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a considerable amount on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
