A little more than twelve months in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as F1's latest participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from nothing has involved a intense pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport converges on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be staged in the America, with around 100 days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center since then and enjoys a wry smile when thinking about the ride.
“You might get a brief moment looking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “Then the very next instant you consider: ‘Well, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the task of introducing the all-American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an F1 team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you won't have the opportunity to transform cultural approach.”
With each passing day that passes thoughts are sharper on the looming moment of truth in Australia and targets are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” the team principal stated earlier this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he believed the team had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So that we arrive and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team executing the correct procedures on the circuit. Once we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate progression from there on.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Effort
In August they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in operating at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the mood of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We face a mountain of work to do, and we expect most likely a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I am confident with this structure, with this group, this staff, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in full swing, with personnel now up to in excess of 400 and planned to hit the objective of 600 rapidly. Alongside their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the phase of building an main base at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are building the center to produce the new engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – for now they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated structure, contrary to the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred.
Apollo Model
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” said Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how challenging it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of project teams all tackling different aspects of the project across a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they report it to their manager, that supervisor talks to a supervisor somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” says Chester. “We give authority to team members to really get on with it. Moving away from managerial sign-off for everything is much smoother and quicker.”
The Future
The success of this nimble methodology will be evaluated in the heat of competition next season and there is a significant degree riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta
