Approximately a full year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the green light as F1's latest entrant for 2026. Building the squad from the ground up has involved a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be hosted in the United States, with around 100 days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are cognizant there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic team in March 2023 shortly after it was established, 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 journey.
“You can have a short period looking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we have built in under three years,’” he notes. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Yeah, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has quite compared with the task of introducing the all-American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the corporate entity, GM, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you don’t get the opportunity to alter team culture.”
With each day that goes by thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the approaching critical moment in Australia and targets are being handled.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the team had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So that we show up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team executing the proper actions on the track. After we prove that we’re really credible, then we will focus on improvement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Drive
In the summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a duo remarkable for their vast knowledge in operating at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the attitude of combative optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We have a massive task to do, and we expect almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. In my view with this structure, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we can't manage to progress rapidly to the front and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in full swing, with employees now at more than 400 and planned to reach the target of 600 rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the phase of finishing an headquarters at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to produce the new engine, planned for the 2029 season – until then they will use Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, at odds with the direction in the sport for increased consolidation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester alluded.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” remarked the team principal ahead of the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how tough it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of project teams all working on different aspects of the program in a different facilities.
“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their supervisor, that supervisor communicates with a leader somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says the CTO. “So we empower people to handle things directly. Moving away from hierarchical consent for each action is much smoother and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a significant degree at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
