Approximately a full year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the official approval as F1's most recent entry for 2026. Constructing the squad from scratch has required a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 descends on Vegas this race weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be held in the United States, with around a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic project in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core since then and enjoys a knowing grin when reflecting on the journey.
“There might be five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we have built in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “And then the following moment you realize: ‘Well, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the challenge of introducing the all-American Cadillac brand, a factory team sponsored by the owner, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an F1 team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you rarely get the chance to change organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that elapses thoughts are sharper on the impending decisive point in Melbourne and targets are being handled.
“One must presume that any incoming team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal noted this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he thought the organization had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So that we arrive and we operate well. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender performing the correct procedures on the track. Once we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate improvement after that.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Effort
In the summer they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a duo notable for their vast knowledge in performing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver expressed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We have a massive task to do, and it’s going to be most likely a tough opening, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I believe given this organization, with this team, this staff, it's entirely possible we can't manage to advance swiftly to the front and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in full swing, with employees now at in excess of 400 and planned to reach the objective of 600 rapidly. Alongside their existing facility at Silverstone, the organization are in the midst of building an HQ at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are building the plant to manufacture the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will use power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a complex organization, contrary to the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” stated Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, instead of the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of specialist groups all tackling different aspects of the program in a different facilities.
“When you must follow a procedure where an issue arises and they report it to their manager, that supervisor consults a leader at a different location, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” explains Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to take charge. Avoiding hierarchical consent for each action is so much cleaner and quicker.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this nimble approach will be tested in the pressure of racing next season and there is a significant degree on the line for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
