Just over twelve months ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the green light as Formula One’s most recent participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from the ground up has required a frenetic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As Formula One arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be staged in the America, with just over a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic operation in March 2023 soon after it was formed, when the squad 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 a brief moment thinking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he says. “But then the following moment you realize: ‘Well, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the challenge of introducing the all-American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an Formula One team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you won't have the chance to change cultural approach.”
With each day that passes thoughts are sharper on the looming critical moment in the Australian GP and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad joining the grid is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” the team principal noted earlier this year and while the CTO echoed this he thought the squad had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we show up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender executing the proper actions on the race track. After we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on progression subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Effort
In late summer they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their invaluable experience in operating at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and we expect most likely a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. In my view with this structure, with this team, this staff, there’s no reason why we can't manage to progress rapidly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in full swing, with personnel now reaching in excess of 400 and intended to reach the target of 600 swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at Silverstone, the organization are in the process of building an main base at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to build the new engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will use Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, different from the direction in Formula One for more centralization, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Chester referred.
NASA Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” stated Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in July. “We are pragmatic, we understand how difficult it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to 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 distinct elements of the program across a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a procedure where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a manager in another department, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” explains Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to really get on with it. Moving away from managerial sign-off for everything is much smoother and quicker.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this agile approach will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is no little amount on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
