Just over one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the official approval as Formula One’s latest entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from scratch has involved a frenetic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As F1 converges on Vegas this weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the final race of the championship to be held in the United States, with just over 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic project in the spring of 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its center ever since and has a amused expression when thinking about the journey.
“There might be a short period reflecting at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in under three years,’” Chester states. “But then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yes, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Chester achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in control of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the challenge of bringing the all-American Cadillac marque, a factory team sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into F1.
“Establishing an Formula One team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you won't have the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”
With each day that passes focus are more focused on the looming critical moment in Australia and targets are being managed.
“One must presume that any new team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented earlier this year and while the CTO shared this view he believed the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So we arrive and we perform competently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation performing the right things on the circuit. After we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate progression from there on.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Effort
In late summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem notable for their invaluable experience in performing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas expressed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We have a massive task to do, and we expect probably a tough opening, because it is F1. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I am confident given this organization, with this group, these people, it's entirely possible we won't be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in full swing, with staff now up to more than 400 and intended to reach the objective of 600 members rapidly. Alongside their current base at Silverstone, the organization are in the phase of building an main base at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are constructing the plant to build the power unit, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organisation, different from the trend in F1 for increased consolidation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” remarked the team principal shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we understand how tough it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of project teams all focusing on different aspects of the project across a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a process where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their team leader, that manager consults a leader in another department, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says Chester. “So we empower people to handle things directly. Eliminating managerial sign-off for all decisions is far more efficient and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this flexible approach will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a considerable amount at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
