Just over twelve months ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the official approval as the world of Formula One's latest entrant for 2026. Establishing the squad from scratch has required a frenetic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 descends on Vegas this race weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the campaign to be staged in the United States, with around three months to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent project in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart since then and gets a amused expression when thinking about the experience.
“There might be a brief moment looking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “And then the next minute you realize: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Chester had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious years of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has been quite like the challenge of launching the all-American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Establishing an F1 team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you won't have the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”
With each passing day that elapses thoughts are more focused on the impending moment of truth in Melbourne and expectations are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team entering the sport is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal commented this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he thought the team had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he says. “So we turn up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender doing the right things on the race track. After we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on progression after that.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push
In late summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo remarkable for their priceless expertise in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas echoed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be probably a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. In my view with this structure, with this team, these people, there is every reason that we won't be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in overdrive, with employees now up to over 400 and planned to hit the goal of 600 rapidly. In addition to their current base at the UK base, the team are in the process of building an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are building the plant to produce the new engine, set for the 2029 season – until then they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, at odds with the trend in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred.
Apollo Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” said the team principal ahead of the British GP in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how difficult it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, rather than the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of project teams all working on different aspects of the program at a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their manager, that leader consults a manager at a different location, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable people to really get on with it. Moving away from managerial sign-off for everything is far more efficient and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this nimble methodology will be proven in the heat of competition next season and there is no little amount at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the young American Colton Herta