A little more than twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the green light as Formula One’s most recent entrant for 2026. Building the team from nothing has entailed a frenetic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be staged in the America, with approximately 100 days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic project in March 2023 shortly after it was created, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core since then and gets a amused expression when considering the experience.
“There might be five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he says. “But then the following moment you realize: ‘Yes, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the task of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the owner, General Motors, into F1.
“Building an Formula One team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you don’t get the possibility to alter organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that elapses minds are sharper on the impending decisive point in the Australian GP and goals are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any incoming team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon commented recently and while Chester echoed this he felt the team had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we turn up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team executing the right things on the race track. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate improvement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Drive
In the summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a tandem notable for their invaluable experience in operating at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the mood of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be probably a tough opening, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to finish last. I am confident with this structure, with these individuals, these personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To that end recruitment has been in top gear, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and planned to reach the goal of 600 rapidly. Complementing their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the process of building an headquarters at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to produce the new engine, planned for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organization, different from the direction in F1 for increased consolidation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred.
Apollo Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said the team principal shortly before the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how difficult it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, instead of the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of project teams all focusing on various components of the program across a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a procedure where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their supervisor, that leader communicates with a leader at a different location, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” says Chester. “So we empower people to take charge. Moving away from hierarchical consent for each action is much smoother and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this agile methodology will be evaluated in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is no little amount riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
