Approximately a full year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the official approval as F1's newest entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from the ground up has required a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the campaign to be staged in the United States, with around three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are aware there will not be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the nascent team in March 2023 not long after it was established, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core from that point and has a knowing grin when reflecting on the ride.
“There might be a short period reflecting at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we have built in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “But then the following moment you consider: ‘Yeah, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Chester achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has truly matched the task of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a works entry backed by the owner, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an Formula One team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you don’t get the chance to change cultural approach.”
With every day that goes by minds are sharper on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.
“You have to assume that any new team joining the grid is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal commented earlier this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he thought the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation performing the right things on the circuit. When we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show improvement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Push
In August they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver echoed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I believe given this organization, with this team, these people, there is every reason that we won't be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with employees now reaching more than 400 and planned to reach the goal of 600 members swiftly. Complementing their current base at the UK base, the team are in the process of building an headquarters at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to produce the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate organisation, contrary to the trend in F1 for increased consolidation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in July. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how difficult it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all tackling different aspects of the project in a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a procedure where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their team leader, that leader communicates with a supervisor in another department, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” says Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to take charge. Avoiding management approval for everything is much smoother and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this nimble methodology will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a considerable amount on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
