Approximately twelve months previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the go-ahead as F1's newest entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from nothing has entailed a intense operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport descends on Vegas this race weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the season to be hosted in the America, with just over three months to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent operation in early 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its core ever since and enjoys a amused expression when reflecting on the experience.
“You might get five minutes reflecting at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in under three years,’” he says. “And then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical development at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the task of bringing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a factory team backed by the owner, GM, into Formula One.
“Building 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 established team you don’t get the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”
With each passing day that goes by focus are sharper on the impending decisive point in Melbourne and goals are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any new team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted this year and while the CTO echoed this he believed the team had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we turn up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender executing the correct procedures on the track. Once we prove that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on improvement after that.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Effort
In the summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in operating at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a tough opening, 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 is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with personnel now up to in excess of 400 and scheduled to hit the goal of 600 members quickly. Alongside their present headquarters at Silverstone, the team are in the phase of completing an headquarters at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are building the center to manufacture the 2029 engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate structure, at odds with the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
NASA Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” stated Lowdon just before the British GP in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we know how tough it is. The timelines, 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, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the mission at a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their manager, that supervisor talks to a supervisor at a different location, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” explains Nick Chester. “We give authority to team members to take charge. Moving away from hierarchical consent for all decisions is far more efficient and more rapid.”
The Future
The success of this nimble approach will be evaluated in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a significant degree at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
