Just over twelve months in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the green light as F1's newest entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from nothing has entailed a intense operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 descends on Vegas this race weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be staged in the America, with approximately 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are aware there will not be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in March 2023 not long after it was formed, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center ever since and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the journey.
“You can have five minutes reflecting at what you’ve done and think: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he notes. “And then the following moment you consider: ‘Well, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical direction at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has been quite like the mission of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the corporate entity, GM, into Formula One.
“Creating an Formula One team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you rarely get the chance to alter cultural approach.”
With every day that passes minds are increasingly concentrated on the impending decisive point in Australia and expectations are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any incoming team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon noted this year and while Chester echoed this he thought the organization had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So we arrive and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation doing the correct procedures on the track. After we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on progression after that.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Effort
In August they contracted Checo Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair notable for their vast knowledge in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver echoed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to finish last. I am confident with this setup, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why 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 personnel now up to more than 400 and planned to attain the goal of six hundred quickly. Alongside their current base at the UK base, the organization are in the process of finishing an main base at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are building the plant to manufacture the 2029 engine, planned for the 2029 season – until then they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex structure, different from the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Chester referred.
Apollo Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, rather than the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all tackling different aspects of the program at a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their supervisor, that leader talks to a leader at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” explains the CTO. “So we empower staff to handle things directly. Moving away from management approval for everything is much smoother and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this nimble strategy will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
