Approximately a full year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the go-ahead as Formula One’s newest participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from nothing has involved a frenetic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac understand the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be staged in the United States, with around a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in early 2023 soon after it was established, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core since then and enjoys a amused expression when reflecting on the experience.
“There might be a short period reflecting at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Wow, what an achievement what the team has created in less than three years,’” he says. “Then the next minute you consider: ‘Yes, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the mission of introducing the all-American Cadillac marque, a factory team backed by the parent company, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an grand prix team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you don’t get the possibility to transform cultural approach.”
With each passing day that goes by focus are more focused on the approaching critical moment in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated this year and while the CTO echoed this he felt the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So that we turn up and we perform competently. We want to show that we’re a proper team executing the proper actions on the race track. Once we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on improvement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Push
In late summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a duo remarkable for their vast knowledge in performing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the mood of combative optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be probably a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to finish last. I believe given this organization, with this team, these personnel, there is every reason that we won't be able to advance swiftly to the front and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in full swing, with personnel now up to more than 400 and planned to reach the goal of six hundred swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at the UK base, the organization are in the process of finishing an headquarters at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the center to produce the power unit, set for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex structure, different from the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which the CTO alluded.
Apollo Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we recognize how difficult it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all focusing on various components of the program at a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they report it to their manager, that manager consults a manager somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” explains Chester. “We give authority to people to really get on with it. Eliminating management approval for each action is much smoother and quicker.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this agile methodology will be evaluated in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is no little amount at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
