Approximately a full year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's newest entrant for 2026. Establishing the team from scratch has involved a intense work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One arrives on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac know the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be staged in the America, with around 100 days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the nascent operation in March 2023 not long after it was established, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart ever since and enjoys a wry smile when reflecting on the ride.
“You might get five minutes reflecting at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he says. “Then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Chester had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious years of the mid-2000s and was in control of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the task of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a factory team backed by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an F1 team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you won't have the chance to alter cultural approach.”
With every day that goes by minds are more focused on the looming decisive point in Australia and targets are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal stated recently and while Chester shared this view he thought the team had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the race track. After we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate improvement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Push
In August they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a pair remarkable for their priceless expertise in competing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We face a mountain of work to do, and we expect probably a difficult start, because it is F1. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I am confident with this structure, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we can't manage to get relatively quickly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in top gear, with personnel now at more than 400 and scheduled to hit the goal of 600 members rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the phase of completing an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to manufacture the power unit, set for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, different from the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester alluded.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” said the team principal ahead of the British GP in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all focusing on different aspects of the project in a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where an issue arises and they raise it up to their manager, that leader talks to a leader in another department, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” notes Chester. “We give authority to people to take charge. Eliminating management approval for all decisions is so much cleaner and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this flexible approach will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is no little amount at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
