Approximately twelve months in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the official approval as F1's most recent entry for 2026. Constructing the team from the ground up has involved a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One descends on Las Vegas this weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the final race of the championship to be hosted in the United States, with around 100 days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic project in early 2023 soon after it was created, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center since then and has a knowing grin when considering the journey.
“You can have five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he says. “And then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yes, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's title-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the task of launching the all-American Cadillac marque, a works entry backed by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Creating an F1 team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you don’t get the possibility to transform team culture.”
With each passing day that passes focus are increasingly concentrated on the looming moment of truth in the Australian GP and expectations are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any new team entering the sport is going to be last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal noted this year and while the CTO shared this view he thought the team had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So that we turn up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation executing the correct procedures on the track. When we prove that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate improvement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push
In the summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a pair remarkable for their invaluable experience in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver reflected the mood of determined optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he said. “We have a massive task to do, and we expect probably a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I am confident given this organization, with this group, these personnel, it's entirely possible we can't manage to get relatively quickly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in overdrive, with personnel now up to more than 400 and intended to reach the objective of six hundred swiftly. In addition to their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the phase of finishing an HQ at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are building the facility to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, at odds with the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred.
Apollo Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we know how difficult it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of project teams all tackling distinct elements of the project at a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where an issue arises and they escalate it to their team leader, that supervisor communicates with a leader somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” explains Nick Chester. “We give authority to team members to really get on with it. Avoiding management approval for all decisions is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this nimble methodology will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a significant degree on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
