A little more than twelve months ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the official approval as the world of Formula One's newest entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from the ground up has required a frenetic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be hosted in the United States, with just over a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent team in March 2023 not long after it was created, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core ever since and enjoys a knowing grin when considering the journey.
“You might get five minutes looking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “Then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious seasons of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the mission of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a factory team supported by the corporate entity, GM, into F1.
“Establishing an F1 team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the possibility to change cultural approach.”
With each day that passes thoughts are sharper on the approaching critical moment in the Australian GP and expectations are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” the team principal noted recently and while the CTO shared this view he believed the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “In order that we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation doing the proper actions on the race track. After we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate progression from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive
In late summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a duo notable for their invaluable experience in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver expressed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We face a massive task to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to finish last. I believe given this organization, with these individuals, these people, there’s no reason why we won't be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in full swing, with staff now up to more than 400 and planned to hit the goal of 600 rapidly. Alongside their current base at Silverstone, the organization are in the midst of completing an headquarters at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are building the center to produce the power unit, planned for 2029 – until then they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, contrary to the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Chester referred to.
Apollo Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” remarked Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we recognize how challenging it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, instead of the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of project teams all working on different aspects of the program in a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a process where an issue arises and they raise it up to their team leader, that manager talks to a supervisor at a different location, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “So we empower team members to handle things directly. Moving away from managerial sign-off for each action is far more efficient and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this flexible approach will be tested in the pressure of racing next season and there is a significant degree riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
