Approximately one year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the official approval as the world of Formula One's most recent entry for the 2026 season. Building the squad from scratch has involved a hectic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 converges on Vegas this weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the season to be held in the America, with just over a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed project in early 2023 soon after it was created, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its core from that point and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the journey.
“You might get five minutes reflecting at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in less than three years,’” he says. “Then the next minute you think: ‘Yeah, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the parent company, General Motors, into F1.
“Creating an Formula One 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 don’t get the chance to transform organizational mindset.”
With every day that elapses thoughts are sharper on the approaching critical moment in Australia and expectations are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any new team entering the sport is going to be last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated recently and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “In order that we arrive and we operate well. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation executing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Push
In late summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair remarkable for their priceless expertise in operating at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the mood of determined optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We face a massive task to do, and it’s going to be probably a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to finish last. In my view given this organization, with these individuals, these personnel, there is every reason that we can't manage to advance swiftly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with staff now reaching more than 400 and intended to attain the goal of six hundred swiftly. Alongside their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the midst of building an HQ at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex organization, at odds with the trend in F1 for greater centralisation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred.
NASA Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” stated Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in the summer. “We’re realistic, we recognize how tough it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all working on distinct elements of the mission in a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a process where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their team leader, that supervisor consults a manager somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” explains the CTO. “Therefore we enable people to really get on with it. Moving away from hierarchical consent for all decisions is so much cleaner and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this agile methodology will be proven in the pressure of racing next season and there is no little amount on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
