Approximately one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the official approval as F1's latest entry for 2026. Establishing the team from the ground up has involved a hectic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As the sport converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be hosted in the United States, with approximately 100 days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are cognizant there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed team in March 2023 shortly after it was established, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center ever since and has a amused expression when reflecting on the ride.
“There might be a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in less than three years,’” he notes. “And then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has been quite like the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a factory team supported by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Building an F1 team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you rarely get the opportunity to transform team culture.”
With every day that passes minds are increasingly concentrated on the looming critical moment in Australia and targets are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad coming in is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal stated this year and while Chester shared this view he believed the team had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So we turn up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender doing the right things on the race track. Once we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we want to show progression from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Drive
In late summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem notable for their priceless expertise in operating at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver reflected the mood of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and we expect almost certainly a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I am confident with this setup, with these individuals, this staff, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To that end hiring has been in top gear, with personnel now up to more than 400 and intended to hit the goal of six hundred quickly. Alongside their present headquarters at the UK base, the team are in the midst of building an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to build the power unit, planned for 2029 – until then they will run power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a intricate organization, contrary to the movement in F1 for increased consolidation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Chester referred.
NASA Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” said Lowdon ahead of the British GP in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of specialist groups all tackling distinct elements of the program across a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a protocol where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that manager consults a supervisor somewhere else, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” says Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to take charge. Moving away from management approval for all decisions is much smoother and faster.”
The Future
The success of this nimble approach will be tested in the heat of competition next season and there is no little amount at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
