A little more than twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the go-ahead as Formula One’s most recent entrant for 2026. Establishing the organization from nothing has entailed a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be held in the United States, with approximately three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are cognizant there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed team in early 2023 soon after it was established, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core from that point and has a wry smile when thinking about the experience.
“There might be a brief moment reflecting at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he notes. “Then the next minute you think: ‘Yes, there is still a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an F1 team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you rarely get the opportunity to alter team culture.”
With each passing day that elapses thoughts are sharper on the approaching decisive point in Melbourne and targets are being managed.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation doing the correct procedures on the track. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we will focus on improvement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Effort
In August they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem notable for their vast knowledge in competing at the front in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas echoed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We face a massive task to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. I believe with this setup, with these individuals, this staff, there is every reason that we can't manage to get relatively quickly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with employees now up to more than 400 and planned to reach the target of 600 quickly. Complementing their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of building an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are constructing the facility to produce the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a complex structure, different from the movement in the sport for more centralization, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred.
NASA Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we understand how challenging it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a range of project teams all tackling distinct elements of the project at a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a process where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their team leader, that leader talks to a supervisor somewhere else, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” says the CTO. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Avoiding hierarchical consent for everything is far more efficient and faster.”
The Future
The success of this nimble approach will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a significant degree riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta
