Approximately a full year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the go-ahead as F1's latest participant for the 2026 season. Building the squad from scratch has involved a frenetic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One descends on Las Vegas this weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the season to be held in the America, with around a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic operation in early 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center ever since and enjoys a amused expression when thinking about the ride.
“You can have a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in under three years,’” Chester states. “Then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yes, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005/2006 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 task of launching the all-American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the parent company, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an F1 team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you rarely get the opportunity to alter team culture.”
With each passing day that passes minds are sharper on the approaching critical moment in the Australian GP and goals are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad coming in is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted recently and while Chester echoed this he believed the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “In order that we turn up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team executing the correct procedures on the race track. After we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on improvement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push
In the summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their invaluable experience in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a difficult start, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I believe given this organization, with this group, these personnel, it's entirely possible we can't manage to progress rapidly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in top gear, with personnel now up to in excess of 400 and planned to reach the objective of 600 rapidly. In addition to their current base at Silverstone, the team are in the phase of building an headquarters at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are building the center to manufacture the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, different from the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred to.
Space Mission Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” said Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in the summer. “We’re realistic, we understand how difficult it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, 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 decentralized management comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of project teams all working on distinct elements of the project at a different facilities.
“When you must follow a process where an issue arises and they raise it up to their team leader, that manager talks to a leader at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” says the CTO. “We give authority to staff to really get on with it. Avoiding hierarchical consent for all decisions is far more efficient and faster.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this flexible strategy will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a significant degree on the line for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta
