A little more than a full year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the go-ahead as F1's latest entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from the ground up has involved a frenetic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One converges on Las Vegas this weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be hosted in the America, with around three months to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent team in the spring of 2023 soon after it was established, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and has a wry smile when thinking about the experience.
“You can have five minutes thinking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Wow, how impressive what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he says. “Then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, there is still a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the mission of launching the iconic American Cadillac name, a factory team sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an F1 team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you won't have the possibility to change cultural approach.”
With each passing day that elapses focus are more focused on the impending critical moment in Melbourne and goals are being handled.
“One must presume that any incoming team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated this year and while the CTO shared this view he believed the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So that we show up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender executing the correct procedures on the circuit. After we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate improvement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Drive
In August they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a duo remarkable for their vast knowledge in competing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We face a mountain of work to do, and we expect probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. In my view given this organization, with these individuals, these people, there is every reason that we won't be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To that end recruitment has been in overdrive, with personnel now reaching more than 400 and scheduled to reach the target of 600 members quickly. Complementing their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of completing an HQ at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the center to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will run power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organisation, at odds with the trend in the sport for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Chester referred.
Apollo Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” remarked the team principal ahead of the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, rather than the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of project teams all working on different aspects of the program across a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a process where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their supervisor, that leader consults a manager somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says the CTO. “Therefore we enable staff to handle things directly. Avoiding managerial sign-off for all decisions is far more efficient and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this agile methodology will be tested in the pressure of racing next season and there is a significant degree on the line for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta
