Just over a full year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the official approval as the world of Formula One's latest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from scratch has required a intense pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One descends on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac understand the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be hosted in the US, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed operation in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was created, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart since then and has a amused expression when thinking about the journey.
“There might be a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the following moment you think: ‘Well, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has been quite like the challenge of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Building an grand prix team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you rarely get the possibility to alter organizational mindset.”
With every day that elapses focus are sharper on the looming critical moment in Australia and expectations are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any new team entering the sport is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated recently and while Chester echoed this he thought the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “In order that we show up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation doing the proper actions on the race track. When we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we will focus on forward movement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Effort
In the summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a tandem notable for their priceless expertise in performing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a difficult start, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. In my view given this organization, with these individuals, these personnel, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in full swing, with staff now at in excess of 400 and intended to attain the target of six hundred rapidly. Alongside their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the process of building an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are developing the center to build the new engine, set for the 2029 season – until then they will run power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester alluded.
Space Mission Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we know how difficult it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all tackling various components of the program in a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where an issue arises and they raise it up to their supervisor, that supervisor consults a leader somewhere else, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” notes the CTO. “Therefore we enable staff to take charge. Moving away from managerial sign-off for each action is so much cleaner and quicker.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this agile methodology will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a considerable amount at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
