A little more than twelve months ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the official approval as Formula One’s newest entry for 2026. Establishing the squad from scratch has involved a intense pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport arrives on Vegas this race weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be staged in the US, with just over three months to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed operation in the spring of 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart ever since and has a wry smile when considering the ride.
“There might be a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in less than three years,’” Chester states. “And then the following moment you think: ‘Well, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious years of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the challenge of bringing the all-American Cadillac marque, a factory team backed by the corporate entity, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Establishing an grand prix team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you don’t get the chance to alter cultural approach.”
With each day that goes by minds are sharper on the looming critical moment in Australia and goals are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any new team coming in is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal stated recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he felt the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “In order that we turn up and we operate well. We want to show that we’re a proper team doing the right things on the track. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate improvement after that.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Push
In late summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem notable for their invaluable experience in performing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas echoed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he said. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to finish last. In my view with this structure, with this team, these personnel, it's entirely possible we won't be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in overdrive, with personnel now up to in excess of 400 and scheduled to attain the target of 600 swiftly. In addition to their existing facility at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of finishing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are developing the plant to build the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, contrary to the trend in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred.
Apollo Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” said Graeme Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how challenging it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach akin 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 process where an issue arises and they escalate it to their team leader, that manager talks to a leader somewhere else, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says Chester. “So we empower staff to really get on with it. Eliminating management approval for everything is much smoother and more rapid.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this nimble approach will be proven in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a significant degree riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
