Just over one year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the green light as Formula One’s latest entry for 2026. Establishing the squad from nothing has involved a hectic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be held in the United States, with approximately three months to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic operation in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was established, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center from that point and enjoys a knowing grin when thinking about the ride.
“There might be five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what the team has created in under three years,’” Chester states. “Then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yeah, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Task
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical development at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Creating an Formula One team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you won't have the possibility to transform organizational mindset.”
With each day that elapses thoughts are sharper on the looming moment of truth in Melbourne and goals are being handled.
“You have to assume that any new team coming in is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated recently and while Chester echoed this he felt the team had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So that we arrive and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender performing the right things on the circuit. Once we prove that we’re really credible, then we will focus on improvement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Effort
In the summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo remarkable for their vast knowledge in competing at the front in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Bottas expressed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a difficult start, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe with this setup, with this team, this staff, there’s no reason why we can't manage to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”
To that end recruitment has been in top gear, with staff now reaching over 400 and scheduled to reach the target of 600 rapidly. In addition to their current base at Silverstone, the team are in the process of building an main base at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are developing the center to manufacture the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organisation, different from the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Chester referred.
NASA Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” stated Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British GP in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all working on various components of the program in a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a procedure where an issue arises and they raise it up to their team leader, that leader communicates with a manager somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says the CTO. “Therefore we enable people to really get on with it. Moving away from management approval for each action is far more efficient and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this nimble approach will be tested in the pressure of racing next season and there is no little amount riding on this for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
