Approximately a full year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the green light as F1's most recent participant for 2026. Constructing the team from nothing has required a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the season finale of the season to be staged in the US, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent operation in March 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core from that point and has a wry smile when considering the journey.
“You might get a short period reflecting at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Wow, how impressive what we have built in less than three years,’” Chester states. “And then the following moment you think: ‘Well, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious years of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical direction at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has quite compared with the task of bringing the all-American Cadillac brand, a factory team supported by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Creating an Formula One team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you won't have the chance to change team culture.”
With every day that goes by focus are increasingly concentrated on the approaching moment of truth in Australia and expectations are being managed.
“You have to assume that any new team coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated this year and while Chester echoed this he believed the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we arrive and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team performing the proper actions on the track. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Push
In August they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a duo notable for their priceless expertise in performing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, this staff, there’s no reason why we won't be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in overdrive, with staff now at in excess of 400 and scheduled to reach the goal of 600 rapidly. Complementing their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the phase of building an headquarters at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to manufacture the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a intricate structure, different from the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
NASA Inspiration
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” stated Lowdon shortly before the British GP in July. “We are pragmatic, we know how tough it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of project teams all tackling distinct elements of the mission at a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a protocol where an issue arises and they escalate it to their team leader, that manager talks to a manager at a different location, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” says Nick Chester. “So we empower people to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is so much cleaner and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this nimble approach will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is no little amount at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
