Just over a full year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the official approval as Formula One’s most recent participant for 2026. Establishing the organization from scratch has involved a frenetic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be held in the US, with around 100 days to go before they take to the track for the first time 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 never-ending task, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed operation in March 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart ever since and gets a amused expression when considering the ride.
“There might be five minutes looking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Wow, how impressive what we have built in less than three years,’” Chester states. “But then the next minute you realize: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Task
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious seasons of 2005/2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the all-American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors, into F1.
“Building an grand prix team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you won't have the chance to transform cultural approach.”
With each day that elapses minds are increasingly concentrated on the impending decisive point in Melbourne and expectations are being set realistically.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented recently and while Chester shared this view he felt the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he says. “So we arrive and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation doing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on forward movement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Effort
In August they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a pair remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver echoed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and we expect probably a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I am confident with this structure, with this team, these personnel, there’s no reason why we won't be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in top gear, with personnel now reaching in excess of 400 and planned to attain the target of 600 quickly. In addition to their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the midst of finishing an HQ at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are constructing the facility to produce the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organization, at odds with the trend in F1 for more centralization, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Chester referred to.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” said the team principal shortly before the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we recognize how tough it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, instead of the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all working on various components of the project across a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a manager in another department, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” explains Chester. “Therefore we enable people to handle things directly. Moving away from management approval for everything is far more efficient and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this nimble methodology will be proven in the heat of competition next season and there is no little amount at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
