A little more than one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the official approval as the world of Formula One's latest participant for 2026. Establishing the team from the ground up has required a intense work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As the sport converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be hosted in the US, with approximately three months to go before they make their debut for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent project in March 2023 soon after it was created, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center since then and gets a knowing grin when considering the journey.
“You can have five minutes thinking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we’ve done in under three years,’” he notes. “But then the next minute you consider: ‘Well, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical development at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has truly matched the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Creating an F1 team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you won't have the chance to transform team culture.”
With each day that passes thoughts are more focused on the approaching decisive point in Melbourne and expectations are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal commented this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he thought the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender executing the correct procedures on the circuit. After we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate progression after that.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Push
In August they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a duo remarkable for their invaluable experience in competing at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the mood of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it’s going to be most likely a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to finish last. I believe with this setup, with this group, this staff, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in full swing, with personnel now up to over 400 and scheduled to hit the target of six hundred swiftly. Complementing their current base at Silverstone, the team are in the process of finishing an HQ at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the center to build the power unit, scheduled for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a intricate structure, contrary to the trend in the sport for more centralization, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester alluded.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” stated Graeme Lowdon just before the British GP in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how challenging it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of specialist groups all tackling various components of the mission in a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a process where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their team leader, that manager talks to a manager somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” notes Chester. “We give authority to people to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is far more efficient and faster.”
The Future
The success of this agile strategy will be tested in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a considerable amount on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
