A little more than twelve months previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the official approval as F1's most recent entrant for 2026. Constructing the team from scratch has required a hectic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 descends on Vegas this race weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the season to be held in the America, with just over three months to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are cognizant there will not be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent team in March 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center from that point and has a knowing grin when thinking about the experience.
“You might get a brief moment looking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he says. “But then the following moment you realize: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the task of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a works entry supported by the parent company, GM, into F1.
“Establishing an grand prix team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you rarely get the possibility to transform cultural approach.”
With each day that elapses thoughts are sharper on the looming moment of truth in Australia and goals are being handled.
“You have to assume that any new team coming in is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” the team principal commented recently and while Nick Chester shared this view he thought the team had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So that we show up and we function efficiently. We want to show that we’re a proper team doing the right things on the circuit. After we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Effort
In August they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a duo distinguished for their priceless expertise in operating at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the mood of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. In my view given this organization, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we won't be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in full swing, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and intended to attain the objective of six hundred swiftly. Alongside their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the phase of building an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to build the new engine, set for the 2029 season – until then they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a sophisticated structure, contrary to the trend in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred.
NASA Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” said Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how difficult it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of specialist groups all tackling different aspects of the project at a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a procedure where a challenge emerges and they report it to their team leader, that manager talks to a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” notes Chester. “Therefore we enable people to take charge. Eliminating management approval for everything is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this agile approach will be evaluated in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is no little amount riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
