A little more than a full year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the green light as F1's latest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from nothing has required a hectic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One descends on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be held in the US, with approximately three months to go before they make their debut for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are cognizant there will not be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed operation in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center from that point and enjoys a wry smile when thinking about the ride.
“There might be a short period looking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we have built in under three years,’” he notes. “Then the next minute you consider: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the mission of launching the iconic American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the owner, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Building an F1 team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you rarely get the possibility to change cultural approach.”
With every day that passes thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the approaching moment of truth in Australia and expectations are being managed.
“You have to assume that any incoming team coming in is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal noted this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he believed the organization had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So that we arrive and we function efficiently. We want to show that we are a serious contender executing the right things on the circuit. After we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we want to show improvement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Drive
In the summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo remarkable for their priceless expertise in performing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the mood of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be probably a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I am confident with this structure, with this group, this staff, it's entirely possible we can't manage to advance swiftly to the front and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with staff now reaching in excess of 400 and intended to reach the goal of 600 rapidly. Complementing their existing facility at the UK base, the organization are in the phase of finishing an main base at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are building the plant to manufacture the power unit, scheduled for the 2029 season – for now they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organisation, at odds with the movement in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester alluded.
Apollo Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” stated the team principal shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how challenging it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all working on distinct elements of the project at a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their supervisor, that manager consults a supervisor at a different location, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” notes the CTO. “So we empower people to handle things directly. Eliminating management approval for all decisions is so much cleaner and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this agile approach will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is no little amount at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
