Just over one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the official approval as F1's latest participant for the 2026 season. Building the team from the ground up has required a hectic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport arrives on Vegas this race weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be hosted in the America, with approximately 100 days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed project in March 2023 soon after it was established, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its center from that point and has a amused expression when reflecting on the journey.
“You might get five minutes reflecting at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Wow, what an achievement what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “But then the very next instant you think: ‘Well, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Chester had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious years of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the parent company, GM, into Formula One.
“Creating an grand prix team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you rarely get the possibility to alter cultural approach.”
With each passing day that passes minds are sharper on the impending moment of truth in Australia and targets are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad joining the grid is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal noted this year and while Chester shared this view he felt the organization had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we should be there,” he says. “So that we arrive and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender performing the correct procedures on the circuit. Once we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show improvement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive
In August they signed Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their vast knowledge in performing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Bottas echoed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We face a massive task to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a tough opening, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. In my view with this setup, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in full swing, with employees now at over 400 and intended to hit the goal of 600 rapidly. Complementing their present headquarters at Silverstone, the team are in the process of completing an headquarters at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate structure, different from the movement in the sport for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester alluded.
NASA Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We’re realistic, we understand how tough it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a decentralized management akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all working on different aspects of the project in a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a protocol where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor communicates with a manager at a different location, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” explains Chester. “So we empower team members to handle things directly. Avoiding management approval for all decisions is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this nimble methodology will be evaluated in the heat of competition next season and there is a significant degree on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
