Approximately one year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the green light as F1's most recent participant for 2026. Establishing the organization from scratch has involved a hectic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be staged in the US, with approximately 100 days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural 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 endeavor, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent operation in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was established, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core ever since and enjoys a knowing grin when considering the experience.
“There might be a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we have built in under three years,’” he says. “Then the following moment you think: ‘Well, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
Nick Chester had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the challenge of bringing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the parent company, GM, into F1.
“Creating an F1 team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you rarely get the opportunity to transform cultural approach.”
With every day that elapses focus are increasingly concentrated on the impending critical moment in Melbourne and expectations are being handled.
“One must presume that any new team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” the team principal noted this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he felt the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So we turn up and we operate well. We want to show that this is a professional operation executing the right things on the race track. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we will focus on progression after that.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Effort
In late summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo notable for their priceless expertise in operating at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver expressed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to finish last. In my view given this organization, with these individuals, this staff, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in full swing, with personnel now at more than 400 and scheduled to hit the target of 600 swiftly. In addition to their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the process of finishing an HQ at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are building the plant to build the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – until then they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate structure, different from the direction in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred.
NASA Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” remarked Lowdon ahead of the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we recognize how tough it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of project teams all focusing on various components of the project across a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where an issue arises and they report it to their team leader, that leader communicates with a leader somewhere else, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” says the CTO. “So we empower team members to handle things directly. Moving away from managerial sign-off for everything is much smoother and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this agile strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
