Approximately a full year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the official approval as Formula One’s newest participant for 2026. Establishing the organization from the ground up has entailed a frenetic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be held in the America, with around a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the 2026 season 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 technical director, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed project in the spring of 2023 not long after it was created, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its center from that point and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the experience.
“You might get a brief moment looking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he says. “And then the following moment you consider: ‘Well, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Chester had success at Renault in Alonso's victorious seasons of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical development at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the mission of introducing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a factory team supported by the parent company, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an F1 team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you won't have the chance to transform cultural approach.”
With every day that passes focus are sharper on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and goals are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team entering the sport is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” the team principal commented earlier this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he felt the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he says. “So we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation doing the right things on the race track. When we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we want to show improvement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Effort
In late summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair notable for their vast knowledge in competing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the mood of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be most likely a tough opening, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to finish last. I believe given this organization, with this group, this staff, there’s no reason why we won't be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with staff now at in excess of 400 and planned to attain the goal of six hundred rapidly. Alongside their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of completing an HQ at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the center to produce the power unit, scheduled for the 2029 season – for now they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate structure, different from the trend in F1 for more centralization, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred to.
Space Mission Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in July. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how tough it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, rather than the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of project teams all working on various components of the program across a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a protocol where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their manager, that manager talks to a leader at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” explains Nick Chester. “So we empower people to really get on with it. Avoiding hierarchical consent for all decisions is much smoother and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this flexible approach will be proven in the heat of competition next season and there is a considerable amount riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
