A little more than one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the official approval as F1's latest participant for 2026. Establishing the squad from nothing has involved a intense work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 descends on Vegas this race weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be held in the America, with around 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed team in the spring of 2023 soon after it was formed, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center ever since and gets a wry smile when reflecting on the experience.
“You can have five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Wow, how impressive what we have built in under three years,’” he says. “And then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Task
Chester achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the challenge of launching the all-American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the corporate entity, GM, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you don’t get the possibility to change team culture.”
With each day that passes thoughts are sharper on the looming moment of truth in Australia and targets are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal stated recently and while Nick Chester echoed this he felt the organization had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team doing the correct procedures on the circuit. Once we prove that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate improvement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Push
In August they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem notable for their invaluable experience in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a tough opening, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. In my view with this setup, with these individuals, these people, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in overdrive, with staff now at over 400 and planned to hit the goal of 600 members rapidly. Complementing their existing facility at the UK base, the team are in the phase of completing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex organization, different from the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Chester referred.
Apollo Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” stated the team principal just before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how tough it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all tackling different aspects of the program across a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a process where an issue arises and they raise it up to their team leader, that supervisor talks to a manager at a different location, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” explains the CTO. “So we empower staff to handle things directly. Eliminating hierarchical consent for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be evaluated in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is no little amount on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
