A little more than a full year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the green light as F1's newest participant for the 2026 season. Building the team from nothing has involved a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on Vegas this race weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the championship to be hosted in the America, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed project in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart ever since and gets a amused expression when considering the experience.
“You can have a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in command of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a works entry backed by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Creating an grand prix team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you won't have the possibility to transform organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that passes minds are increasingly concentrated on the approaching moment of truth in Melbourne and goals are being handled.
“One must presume that any incoming team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated recently and while Nick Chester shared this view he believed the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So that we arrive and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the circuit. When we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Effort
In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver expressed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I am confident with this structure, with this team, this staff, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To that end recruitment has been in overdrive, with staff now at more than 400 and intended to reach the objective of six hundred swiftly. In addition to their existing facility at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of building an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to manufacture the power unit, set for 2029 – until then they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organisation, contrary to the direction in Formula One for more centralization, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Chester referred to.
NASA Inspiration
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” stated the team principal just before the British GP in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how challenging it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of specialist groups all tackling different aspects of the program across a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a procedure where an issue arises and they escalate it to their team leader, that manager communicates with a supervisor somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” notes Chester. “So we empower staff to really get on with it. Moving away from hierarchical consent for everything is much smoother and faster.”
The Future
The success of this nimble approach will be proven in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is no little amount at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
