Approximately one year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the go-ahead as F1's most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Building the squad from the ground up has required a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As the sport converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be staged in the US, with approximately three months to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed operation in early 2023 soon after it was created, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its center ever since and enjoys a amused expression when thinking about the experience.
“There might be a short period thinking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the next minute you realize: ‘Yeah, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the task of introducing the all-American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Creating an F1 team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the possibility to alter team culture.”
With each day that passes focus are sharper on the approaching moment of truth in Melbourne and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad entering the sport is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented this year and while Chester echoed this he felt the organization had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So we show up and we operate well. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team doing the right things on the race track. Once we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we want to show progression subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive
In late summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem notable for their priceless expertise in performing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he said. “We have a massive task to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I am confident with this structure, with these individuals, these people, it's entirely possible we won't be able to get relatively quickly to the front and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in full swing, with personnel now up to over 400 and scheduled to reach the goal of 600 members rapidly. Alongside their present headquarters at Silverstone, the organization are in the midst of building an HQ at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are building the plant to build the power unit, planned for the 2029 season – for now they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, at odds with the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which the CTO alluded.
Space Mission Model
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how tough it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, rather than the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all working on distinct elements of the mission at a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they report it to their manager, that manager communicates with a leader at a different location, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” explains the CTO. “Therefore we enable staff to take charge. Moving away from management approval for all decisions is much smoother and more rapid.”
The Future
The success of this agile strategy will be proven in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is no little amount at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
