Just over a full year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the official approval as F1's most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Building the organization from scratch has entailed a intense pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One arrives on Vegas this weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be held in the America, with around 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 come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are aware there will not be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic operation in March 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core since then and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the ride.
“You might get five minutes looking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Amazing, how impressive what the team has created in under three years,’” he says. “And then the following moment you think: ‘Well, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in control of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the challenge of launching the all-American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the parent company, GM, into F1.
“Building an grand prix team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you won't have the chance to transform team culture.”
With each passing day that elapses thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the approaching critical moment in Australia and targets are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad entering the sport is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So that we show up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team performing the proper actions on the track. When we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate improvement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Drive
In late summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a duo remarkable for their priceless expertise in competing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be most likely a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I believe with this structure, with this team, this staff, it's entirely possible we won't be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in full swing, with personnel now up to over 400 and planned to attain the target of six hundred rapidly. Complementing their existing facility at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are building the center to build the power unit, planned for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate structure, at odds with the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester alluded.
Space Mission Model
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” stated Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of NASA's, where there were a range of project teams all focusing on distinct elements of the project at a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a process where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that leader consults a supervisor somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “So we empower people to take charge. Avoiding management approval for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this agile approach will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a significant degree at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
