Just over a full year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from scratch has required a hectic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac understand time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the championship to be staged in the United States, with approximately 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 task, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed project in March 2023 shortly after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core since then and enjoys a amused expression when thinking about the ride.
“You might get a short period thinking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “And then the next minute you consider: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Task
Chester had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the mission of introducing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Establishing an F1 team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you won't have the chance to alter organizational mindset.”
With each day that goes by minds are increasingly concentrated on the impending critical moment in Melbourne and expectations are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad joining the grid is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “In order that we turn up and we operate well. We want to show that we’re a proper team performing the right things on the track. After we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Drive
In the summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a duo remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the front in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver echoed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I am confident with this structure, with these individuals, these personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in full swing, with staff now reaching over 400 and intended to attain the goal of 600 rapidly. Complementing 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 works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to produce the new engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex organization, different from the movement in F1 for more centralization, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred to.
NASA Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” stated the team principal ahead of the British GP in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, rather than the traditional management structure, a flat management structure akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all focusing on different aspects of the mission across a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a process where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their supervisor, that manager communicates with a leader at a different location, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” explains Chester. “Therefore we enable people to really get on with it. Eliminating managerial sign-off for everything is so much cleaner and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be proven in the heat of competition next season and there is a significant degree at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
