A little more than one year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the go-ahead as Formula One’s newest entry for 2026. Constructing the squad from nothing has required a intense work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As Formula One arrives on Vegas this weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the championship to be hosted in the US, with just over 100 days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent project in early 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core since then and gets a amused expression when reflecting on the journey.
“You can have a brief moment thinking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he says. “But then the very next instant you consider: ‘Well, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in command of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the mission of introducing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a works entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Building an grand prix team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you don’t get the possibility to change team culture.”
With each passing day that goes by minds are more focused on the looming moment of truth in Australia and goals are being set realistically.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad coming in is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal noted recently and while Chester shared this view he thought the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So that we show up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation doing the right things on the circuit. After we prove that we’re really credible, then we will focus on progression subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Push
In late summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their vast knowledge in performing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and we expect almost certainly a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I believe given this organization, with this team, these people, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To that end hiring has been in overdrive, with personnel now up to over 400 and planned to attain the goal of six hundred swiftly. Alongside their present headquarters at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of completing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the center to produce the new engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, at odds with the direction in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Chester alluded.
Space Mission Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon shortly before the British GP in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we understand how difficult it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, rather than the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of project teams all working on different aspects of the mission in a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a protocol where an issue arises and they raise it up to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” says the CTO. “So we empower people to take charge. Avoiding hierarchical consent for each action is much smoother and quicker.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this flexible approach will be tested in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is no little amount on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta