Just over one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the green light as F1's latest entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from scratch has involved a frenetic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport converges on Las Vegas this weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be held in the US, with just over 100 days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are aware there will not be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed project in the spring of 2023 soon after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart since then and enjoys a knowing grin when reflecting on the journey.
“You might get a short period reflecting at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he says. “But then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Task
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical direction at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has been quite like the task of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Establishing an F1 team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you rarely get the possibility to change organizational mindset.”
With each day that elapses minds are sharper on the approaching critical moment in Australia and goals are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any new team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal noted this year and while Chester shared this view he felt the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So we turn up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation doing the correct procedures on the track. After we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Push
In August they contracted Checo Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a duo remarkable for their invaluable experience in competing at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver reflected the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and we expect probably a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I believe with this structure, with this team, these personnel, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in top gear, with personnel now up to more than 400 and planned to reach the objective of 600 swiftly. Alongside their existing facility at the UK base, the organization are in the midst of building an HQ at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to build the new engine, planned for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a intricate organization, different from the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred.
Space Mission Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” stated Graeme Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we understand how difficult it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, rather than the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of project teams all tackling different aspects of the project across a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a protocol where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that supervisor communicates with a manager somewhere else, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” says Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to take charge. Eliminating hierarchical consent for everything is far more efficient and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be proven in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
