Approximately twelve months ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the green light as the world of Formula One's newest entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from the ground up has involved a intense pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 converges on Vegas this race weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the final race of the championship to be hosted in the United States, with approximately three months to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are aware there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent operation in early 2023 shortly after it was created, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core from that point and has a amused expression when reflecting on the experience.
“You might get a brief moment thinking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he says. “Then the following moment you consider: ‘Well, there is still a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the challenge of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, GM, into Formula One.
“Creating an grand prix team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you don’t get the possibility to change cultural approach.”
With each passing day that goes by thoughts are more focused on the looming moment of truth in the Australian GP and expectations are being set realistically.
“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 feat in itself,” the team principal noted earlier this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he believed the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation doing the right things on the track. Once we prove that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate improvement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Effort
In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a duo remarkable for their invaluable experience in competing at the front in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas expressed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I believe with this setup, with this team, this staff, it's entirely possible we can't manage to advance swiftly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with personnel now at more than 400 and intended to attain the target of 600 swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at the UK base, the team are in the midst of building an headquarters at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are building the center to produce the new engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organisation, different from the movement in F1 for increased consolidation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Chester referred.
Apollo Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” remarked Graeme Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how difficult it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of project teams all focusing on different aspects of the mission across a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a protocol where an issue arises and they raise it up to their team leader, that leader consults a manager somewhere else, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” explains Chester. “We give authority to staff to really get on with it. Moving away from managerial sign-off for all decisions is far more efficient and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this agile approach will be evaluated in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is no little amount on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
