A little more than one year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the go-ahead as Formula One’s newest entrant for 2026. Establishing the team from nothing has required a hectic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the season to be held in the United States, with just over a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent operation in the spring of 2023 not long after it was established, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its center ever since and has a wry smile when thinking about the ride.
“You can have a brief moment thinking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in less than three years,’” Chester states. “Then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yes, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Nick Chester had success at Renault in Alonso's victorious years of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical development at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has truly matched the task of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a works entry backed by the owner, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you don’t get the opportunity to transform organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that passes minds are more focused on the approaching critical moment in the Australian GP and targets are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any incoming team coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal noted earlier this year and while the CTO echoed this he believed the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we turn up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team doing the proper actions on the race track. When we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we want to show forward movement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Push
In the summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in performing at the front in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a difficult start, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I believe with this setup, with these individuals, this staff, it's entirely possible we can't manage to progress rapidly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with employees now reaching in excess of 400 and intended to hit the goal of six hundred rapidly. Complementing their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the phase of completing an main base at Fishers in the Indianapolis area 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 operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organization, contrary to the trend in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” remarked Graeme Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we recognize how tough it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of project teams all tackling various components of the mission at a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that manager talks to a manager at a different location, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” explains Nick Chester. “We give authority to people to take charge. Eliminating management approval for each action is much smoother and more rapid.”
The Future
The efficacy of this flexible approach will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a significant degree on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
