A little more than a full year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the official approval as Formula One’s latest entrant for 2026. Establishing the squad from nothing has involved a frenetic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 arrives on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the championship to be held in the United States, with just over a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed operation in early 2023 not long after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart since then and enjoys a amused expression when considering the journey.
“You can have a short period thinking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Wow, how impressive what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “But then the very next instant you think: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical direction at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the mission of introducing the all-American Cadillac marque, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an Formula One team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you don’t get the opportunity to transform cultural approach.”
With each passing day that goes by minds are more focused on the impending decisive point in Australia and goals are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any new team coming in is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon stated earlier this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he believed the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So we turn up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender executing the right things on the track. After we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we want to show improvement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Effort
In August they recruited Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem notable for their vast knowledge in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver expressed the mood of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be probably a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, these people, it's entirely possible we can't manage to advance swiftly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To that end hiring has been in overdrive, with personnel now at more than 400 and scheduled to attain the objective of 600 rapidly. Alongside their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the phase of finishing an headquarters at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the center to produce the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate organization, contrary to the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred to.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in July. “We are pragmatic, we understand how difficult it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Well, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of project teams all tackling various components of the mission across a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their team leader, that supervisor talks to a manager at a different location, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says Nick Chester. “So we empower team members to take charge. Eliminating managerial sign-off for each action is far more efficient and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this agile approach will be proven in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is no little amount on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
