A little more than a full year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the go-ahead as Formula One’s latest entry for the 2026 season. Building the organization from scratch has required a frenetic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the campaign to be held in the United States, with just over 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly 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 nascent project in early 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart since then and has a wry smile when thinking about the ride.
“You might get a short period reflecting at what you’ve done and say: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we’ve done in under three years,’” he says. “And then the following moment you think: ‘Well, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has been quite like the task of introducing the all-American Cadillac name, a works entry backed by the owner, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Creating an F1 team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the chance to transform team culture.”
With each day that elapses minds are more focused on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.
“You have to assume that any incoming team coming in is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon stated recently and while Chester shared this view he believed the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we show up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation doing the proper actions on the track. Once we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression after that.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Effort
In the summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo notable for their vast knowledge in operating at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We have a massive task to do, and we expect most likely a tough opening, because it is F1. But we’re not there to stay at the back. In my view given this organization, with this group, these people, it's entirely possible we can't manage to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”
To that end recruitment has been in top gear, with employees now at over 400 and intended to attain the target of six hundred swiftly. In addition to their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the process of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to build the power unit, set for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organization, different from the direction in F1 for greater centralisation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester alluded.
Space Mission Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” remarked Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we understand how challenging it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of project teams all focusing on distinct elements of the mission in a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a process where an issue arises and they raise it up to their team leader, that supervisor consults a manager somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” says Chester. “So we empower staff to handle things directly. Eliminating management approval for each action is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this agile methodology will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a considerable amount on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
