Approximately twelve months in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the green light as F1's most recent participant for 2026. Establishing the team from nothing has involved a frenetic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As the sport descends on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be hosted in the America, with approximately 100 days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic team in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart from that point and enjoys a wry smile when reflecting on the experience.
“There might be five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we have built in less than three years,’” he says. “Then the following moment you consider: ‘Yeah, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the task of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a works entry sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an Formula One team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you won't have the opportunity to change team culture.”
With every day that passes thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the impending decisive point in Australia and expectations are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team joining the grid is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented this year and while the CTO shared this view he felt the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we turn up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation performing the correct procedures on the track. Once we prove that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate improvement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Drive
In the summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a pair notable for their priceless expertise in operating at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the mood of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be most likely a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. I believe given this organization, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we won't be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with personnel now reaching over 400 and scheduled to reach the target of 600 rapidly. Alongside their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the phase of finishing an HQ at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to manufacture the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, different from the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred.
NASA Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated the team principal shortly before the British GP in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we understand how tough it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Well, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the program across a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they report it to their team leader, that supervisor consults a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” explains Nick Chester. “So we empower people to really get on with it. Moving away from management approval for everything is much smoother and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this agile methodology will be evaluated in the pressure of racing next season and there is a considerable amount riding on this for the sport, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
