Approximately one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the go-ahead as Formula One’s most recent entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from the ground up has entailed a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be staged in the US, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed operation in March 2023 soon after it was established, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its center since then and has a amused expression when reflecting on the ride.
“There might be five minutes looking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Wow, how impressive what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “And then the following moment you think: ‘Well, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical direction at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has truly matched the challenge of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a factory team supported by the corporate entity, GM, into F1.
“Creating an Formula One team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you won't have the opportunity to alter organizational mindset.”
With each day that passes thoughts are sharper on the looming decisive point in Australia and expectations are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team coming in is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon commented this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the organization had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender performing the correct procedures on the race track. After we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Drive
In the summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair remarkable for their priceless expertise in performing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver echoed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. 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 the front and taste victory.”
To that end recruitment has been in overdrive, with staff now at more than 400 and scheduled to hit the target of 600 swiftly. In addition to their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the phase of completing an HQ at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are developing the center to produce the new engine, set for 2029 – for now they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, different from the trend in F1 for greater centralisation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester alluded.
NASA Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” remarked Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how difficult it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, instead of the traditional management structure, a decentralized management akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of project teams all tackling different aspects of the program across a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a procedure where a challenge emerges and they report it to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a supervisor in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” explains Chester. “Therefore we enable people to really get on with it. Eliminating hierarchical consent for each action is much smoother and more rapid.”
The Future
The efficacy of this agile methodology will be proven in the pressure of racing next season and there is a significant degree at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
