Approximately one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the official approval as Formula One’s latest participant for the 2026 season. Building the organization from scratch has involved a frenetic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 descends on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be held in the United States, with just over 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne 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 task, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent project in early 2023 soon after it was created, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart from that point and enjoys a amused expression when reflecting on the ride.
“You might get a short period reflecting at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in under three years,’” he notes. “Then the next minute you realize: ‘Yes, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in Alonso's victorious seasons 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 mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the corporate entity, GM, into F1.
“Establishing an Formula One team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you rarely get the chance to change organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that elapses focus are sharper on the impending decisive point in the Australian GP and expectations are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any incoming team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon commented this year and while Chester shared this view he felt the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we show up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation doing the right things on the track. Once we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate improvement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Drive
In late summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair notable for their vast knowledge in operating at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I believe with this setup, with this team, these personnel, there is every reason that we won't be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To that end hiring has been in top gear, with staff now up to in excess of 400 and planned to hit the target of 600 quickly. Alongside their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the midst of building an HQ at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to manufacture the power unit, planned for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate organisation, different from the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” stated Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of specialist groups all tackling different aspects of the project across a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where an issue arises and they report it to their manager, that supervisor consults a manager somewhere else, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” explains Chester. “We give authority to team members to really get on with it. Moving away from managerial sign-off for all decisions is so much cleaner and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this nimble methodology will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a considerable amount on the line for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their reserve driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
