Just over a full year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the go-ahead as F1's latest entry for 2026. Building the team from the ground up has required a intense work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be held in the America, with around a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed project in March 2023 not long after it was formed, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center since then and has a amused expression when considering the experience.
“You can have a short period thinking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what the team has created in less than three years,’” he says. “But then the following moment you think: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical development at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has truly matched the challenge of launching the all-American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the owner, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Building an F1 team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you rarely get the possibility to alter organizational mindset.”
With each day that goes by focus are more focused on the looming decisive point in Melbourne and goals are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon stated this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that we’re a proper team executing the proper actions on the track. When we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate improvement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push
In late summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We have a massive task to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I believe with this setup, with this team, these people, it's entirely possible we can't manage to advance swiftly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To that end hiring has been in overdrive, with staff now up to more than 400 and scheduled to attain the target of six hundred quickly. In addition to their existing facility at the UK base, the team are in the midst of completing an main base at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are developing the facility to build the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate organization, contrary to the trend in the sport for more centralization, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” stated Lowdon ahead of the British GP in July. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how tough it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, rather than the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on various components of the program across a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their team leader, that leader consults a supervisor somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” says Chester. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Moving away from managerial sign-off for each action is much smoother and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this agile methodology will be evaluated in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a considerable amount at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
