Approximately a full year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the go-ahead as F1's latest participant for 2026. Establishing the team from the ground up has required a intense work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be staged in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic team in March 2023 soon after it was created, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center since then and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the ride.
“There might be a brief moment thinking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in under three years,’” he notes. “But then the following moment you consider: ‘Yeah, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Task
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical direction at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the task of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a factory team supported by the owner, GM, into Formula One.
“Establishing an Formula One team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you rarely get the chance to alter cultural approach.”
With each passing day that goes by focus are increasingly concentrated on the impending decisive point in Melbourne and expectations are being handled.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is going to be last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he thought the organization had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “In order that we arrive and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender performing the correct procedures on the race track. After we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on improvement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Drive
In the summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their drivers for the 2026 season, a duo distinguished for their invaluable experience in operating at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver echoed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We have a massive task to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to finish last. I am confident with this structure, with this group, this staff, it's entirely possible we can't manage to get relatively quickly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in full swing, with employees now up to more than 400 and planned to reach the goal of six hundred swiftly. In addition to their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the process of finishing an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are developing the center to manufacture the power unit, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex organisation, different from the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred to.
Apollo Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Graeme Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of specialist groups all working on distinct elements of the project across a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a protocol where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their supervisor, that manager consults a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” notes the CTO. “So we empower staff to take charge. Moving away from management approval for everything is so much cleaner and faster.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this nimble strategy will be tested in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
