A little more than one year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the official approval as F1's newest entrant for 2026. Constructing the squad from the ground up has involved a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One descends on Vegas this weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the season to be hosted in the US, with around three months to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic project in March 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core since then and enjoys a amused expression when considering the ride.
“You might get five minutes looking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in under three years,’” Chester states. “But then the next minute you think: ‘Well, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the challenge of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the corporate entity, GM, into Formula One.
“Establishing an F1 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 don’t get the possibility to change team culture.”
With each day that goes by minds are increasingly concentrated on the impending critical moment in Melbourne and goals are being handled.
“You have to assume that any incoming team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted recently and while Chester echoed this he felt the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we arrive and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender performing the proper actions on the circuit. When we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show improvement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Drive
In late summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their priceless expertise in operating at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be probably a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to finish last. I believe with this setup, with this team, this staff, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with staff now reaching more than 400 and scheduled to hit the target of 600 rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at Silverstone, the organization are in the phase of finishing an HQ at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to manufacture the new engine, set for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex structure, at odds with the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred to.
Space Mission Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a decentralized management akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of specialist groups all tackling various components of the mission in a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a process where an issue arises and they escalate it to their manager, that manager talks to a leader in another department, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” says Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to handle things directly. Moving away from management approval for all decisions is much smoother and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this nimble approach will be proven in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a considerable amount on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
