Approximately a full year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the official approval as the world of Formula One's newest participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from scratch has entailed a frenetic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As Formula One arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be held in the America, with just over 100 days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic team in the spring of 2023 not long after it was formed, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its core from that point and has a wry smile when reflecting on the ride.
“You might get a brief moment reflecting at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Amazing, how impressive what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he says. “Then the very next instant you think: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Task
Chester achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical development at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has quite compared with the task of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Creating an Formula One team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you won't have the opportunity to change organizational mindset.”
With each day that goes by focus are sharper on the impending critical moment in the Australian GP and expectations are being handled.
“You have to assume that any incoming team coming in is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented recently and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the squad had a reputation to build 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 aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender executing the right things on the track. After we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on progression after that.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Effort
In late summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for the 2026 season, a duo distinguished for their vast knowledge in competing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be probably a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. In my view with this structure, with this group, these personnel, there is every reason that we won't be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in overdrive, with employees now reaching in excess of 400 and scheduled to reach the objective of 600 members quickly. Complementing their existing facility at Silverstone, the organization are in the process of building an HQ at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the center to manufacture the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – until then they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organisation, different from the movement in F1 for greater centralisation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” remarked the team principal just before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how tough it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, rather than the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of project teams all focusing on various components of the program across a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where an issue arises and they report it to their supervisor, that supervisor communicates with a manager somewhere else, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says the CTO. “We give authority to people to take charge. Avoiding management approval for everything is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this flexible approach will be tested in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a significant degree riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
