Just over one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the go-ahead as F1's most recent entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from the ground up has required a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be staged in the US, with approximately 100 days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are cognizant there will not be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the nascent operation in early 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core since then and has a amused expression when thinking about the experience.
“There might be a short period thinking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we have built in less than three years,’” Chester states. “And then the next minute you think: ‘Well, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in charge of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has truly matched the challenge of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Building an grand prix team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you rarely get the opportunity to alter team culture.”
With each day that elapses thoughts are more focused on the looming moment of truth in Australia and goals are being handled.
“One must presume that any incoming team coming in is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we arrive and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation doing the right things on the race track. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate progression subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Push
In the summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem notable for their invaluable experience in competing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. I believe with this setup, with this group, these people, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with personnel now reaching in excess of 400 and planned to hit the objective of six hundred swiftly. Alongside their current base at the UK base, the organization are in the phase of building an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to build the new engine, set for 2029 – until then they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organization, at odds with the direction in the sport for more centralization, and has led to the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred.
Space Mission Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” stated the team principal shortly before the British GP in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we know how difficult it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, rather than the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of project teams all tackling various components of the mission across a different facilities.
“When you must follow a procedure where an issue arises and they raise it up to their manager, that manager consults a leader somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” explains Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to take charge. Eliminating managerial sign-off for all decisions is much smoother and quicker.”
The Future
The success of this nimble strategy will be proven in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a considerable amount at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
