Approximately twelve months ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's newest entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from scratch has required a intense work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One descends on Vegas this race weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the championship to be held in the United States, with approximately three months to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Australia 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 adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent team in March 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its core since then and has a amused expression when reflecting on the journey.
“You can have a short period thinking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “But then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yes, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Chester had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical development at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has been quite like the task of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a works entry sponsored by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Establishing an grand prix team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you don’t get the possibility to change cultural approach.”
With every day that passes minds are increasingly concentrated on the approaching moment of truth in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” the team principal commented earlier this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So we show up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender executing the right things on the race track. After we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show progression subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Drive
In August they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a tandem distinguished for their vast knowledge in operating at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas expressed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I believe with this structure, with this group, these people, there is every reason that we won't be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in full swing, with employees now reaching over 400 and scheduled to reach the objective of 600 members swiftly. Alongside their current base at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of finishing an main base at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the center to manufacture the power unit, planned for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organisation, at odds with the direction in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which the CTO alluded.
Apollo Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” remarked Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we understand how difficult it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of project teams all focusing on various components of the mission across a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a protocol where a challenge emerges and they report it to their supervisor, that leader consults a leader somewhere else, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” notes the CTO. “We give authority to people to handle things directly. Eliminating managerial sign-off for each action is so much cleaner and quicker.”
The Future
The success of this agile methodology will be evaluated in the pressure of racing next season and there is a significant degree on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
