Approximately twelve months previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the official approval as Formula One’s most recent entrant for 2026. Establishing the organization from the ground up has entailed a frenetic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be hosted in the United States, with around three months to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing 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 monumental challenge, 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 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core from that point and enjoys a wry smile when thinking about the journey.
“You might get a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what the team has created in less than three years,’” he says. “But then the following moment you consider: ‘Yes, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the task of bringing the iconic American Cadillac name, a works entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an F1 team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the possibility to transform team culture.”
With every day that goes by minds are more focused on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and goals are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any new team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal noted this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the team had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we show up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team performing the proper actions on the race track. When we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we want to show forward movement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push
In late summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their invaluable experience in competing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the attitude of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We have a massive task to do, and we expect probably a difficult start, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I am confident given this organization, with these individuals, these personnel, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in full swing, with personnel now up to over 400 and planned to hit the goal of 600 members swiftly. Alongside their present headquarters at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of finishing an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the power unit, planned for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex structure, different from the trend in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester alluded.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” remarked the team principal just before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We’re realistic, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a flat management structure comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all focusing on different aspects of the project at a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where an issue arises and they report it to their manager, that leader talks to a leader somewhere else, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says Chester. “We give authority to staff to handle things directly. Moving away from hierarchical consent for everything is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
The Future
The effectiveness 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 F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
