Approximately twelve months in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the green light as Formula One’s most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from nothing has involved a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 arrives on Vegas this race weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be hosted in the US, with approximately a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first 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 monumental task, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed team in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was established, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core from that point and gets a amused expression when reflecting on the ride.
“You can have a short period reflecting at what you’ve done and think: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in under three years,’” Chester states. “But then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has been quite like the task of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Creating an Formula One team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the chance to change team culture.”
With each passing day that passes minds are more focused on the approaching critical moment in the Australian GP and targets are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any new team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon commented this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he felt the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “In order that we turn up and we operate well. We want to show that we’re a proper team executing the right things on the track. After we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate progression from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push
In August they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their invaluable experience in competing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the mood of combative optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and we expect almost certainly a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to finish last. I believe given this organization, with these individuals, these people, there’s no reason why we won't be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with staff now at more than 400 and planned to hit the target of six hundred quickly. Complementing their present headquarters at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of building an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are building the center to manufacture the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate structure, different from the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Chester alluded.
NASA Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” remarked Graeme Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how challenging it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of specialist groups all tackling different aspects of the program across a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a process where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their team leader, that supervisor talks to a leader in another department, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” notes Nick Chester. “So we empower team members to take charge. Moving away from managerial sign-off for all decisions is much smoother and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this agile approach will be tested in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a considerable amount on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
