A little more than twelve months in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the official approval as the world of Formula One's most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Building the team from the ground up has involved a hectic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
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 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent project in March 2023 soon after it was created, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart from that point and has a knowing grin when reflecting on the experience.
“There might be a short period looking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we’ve done in under three years,’” Chester states. “And then the next minute you consider: ‘Well, we still have a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
The CTO had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has truly matched the challenge of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a factory team supported by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Establishing an grand prix team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you won't have the chance to transform team culture.”
With each day that passes focus are increasingly concentrated on the approaching critical moment in the Australian GP and goals are being managed.
“One must presume that any new team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented this year and while Chester shared this view he felt the team had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we turn up and we function efficiently. We want to show that this is a professional operation doing the proper actions on the track. Once we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate improvement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Drive
In August they contracted Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in competing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas reflected the attitude of combative optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he said. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I am confident with this structure, with these individuals, these people, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in top gear, with personnel now at more than 400 and scheduled to reach the target of 600 members quickly. Alongside their current base at the UK base, the team are in the process of finishing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to build the power unit, scheduled for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, different from the direction in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester alluded.
Space Mission Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” stated Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how tough it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of project teams all focusing on various components of the program in a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their team leader, that manager consults a supervisor somewhere else, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” explains the CTO. “Therefore we enable staff to take charge. Eliminating management approval for all decisions is much smoother and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this flexible strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is no little amount riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta