Just over a full year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the go-ahead as F1's latest entry for 2026. Building the squad from scratch has involved a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One converges on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the season finale of the campaign to be hosted in the US, with just over three months to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are cognizant there will not be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the nascent operation in the spring of 2023 soon after it was formed, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its center ever since and enjoys a amused expression when considering the experience.
“You might get a short period reflecting at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in less than three years,’” he notes. “But then the very next instant you consider: ‘Well, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical development at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has truly matched the task of bringing the all-American Cadillac name, a factory team supported by the owner, GM, into F1.
“Creating an F1 team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you won't have the opportunity to change organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that elapses minds are more focused on the looming decisive point in Australia and targets are being handled.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad coming in is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal noted this year and while the CTO echoed this he thought the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So we arrive and we operate well. We want to show that we are a serious contender doing the correct procedures on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate improvement after that.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Push
In August they contracted Checo Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their invaluable experience in performing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver reflected the mood of determined optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and we expect most likely a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I am confident with this structure, with this team, these people, it's entirely possible we can't manage to get relatively quickly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with staff now up to in excess of 400 and planned to attain the goal of 600 members rapidly. Alongside their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are building the facility to build the new engine, set for 2029 – for now they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organization, different from the trend in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Chester alluded.
NASA Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” said Graeme Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We’re realistic, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, instead of the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management similar to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all working on various components of the program at a different facilities.
“When you must follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they report it to their supervisor, that manager consults a leader at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” explains Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for each action is far more efficient and faster.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this nimble approach will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is no little amount riding on this for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
