Approximately a full year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the official approval as Formula One’s latest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from the ground up has required a frenetic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One arrives on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be staged in the United States, with just over 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed team in early 2023 soon after it was established, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart from that point and enjoys a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“You can have a brief moment looking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in under three years,’” he says. “Then the next minute you consider: ‘Well, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's victorious campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical direction at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the challenge of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a works entry backed by the owner, GM, into Formula One.
“Building an F1 team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you don’t get the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”
With every day that goes by thoughts are sharper on the impending moment of truth in Australia and goals are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team joining the grid is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted recently and while Chester shared this view he thought the organization had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we should be there,” he says. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team performing the right things on the circuit. When we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on improvement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Drive
In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their vast knowledge in performing at the front in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Bottas echoed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. In my view given this organization, with this group, these personnel, it's entirely possible we won't be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To that end hiring has been in top gear, with personnel now up to over 400 and intended to hit the objective of 600 members swiftly. Complementing their present headquarters at Silverstone, the organization are in the midst of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are constructing the facility to produce the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex structure, different from the trend in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred to.
Apollo Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British GP in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how tough it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all tackling different aspects of the mission in a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a process where an issue arises and they raise it up to their supervisor, that manager talks to a supervisor at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” explains Chester. “We give authority to staff to take charge. Avoiding hierarchical consent for all decisions is far more efficient and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this flexible strategy will be tested in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is no little amount at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
