A little more than twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the green light as Formula One’s newest entry for 2026. Constructing the team from scratch has entailed a intense work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be hosted in the America, with approximately 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne 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 challenge, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed project in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center ever since and has a wry smile when reflecting on the experience.
“There might be a short period reflecting at what you’ve done and go: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what the team has created in less than three years,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you consider: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the challenge of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a works entry supported by the corporate entity, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an Formula One team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you won't have the opportunity to transform cultural approach.”
With each passing day that passes thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the impending decisive point in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he believed the squad had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender executing the correct procedures on the track. After we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we want to show forward movement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Effort
In August they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a duo notable for their vast knowledge in competing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We face a massive task to do, and we expect almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe with this setup, with this team, this staff, it's entirely possible we won't be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with personnel now up to more than 400 and scheduled to attain the objective of six hundred quickly. Complementing their existing facility at Silverstone, the squad are in the process of completing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are developing the facility to produce the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will use Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, contrary to the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred to.
Space Mission Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” stated the team principal ahead of the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we know how tough it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of project teams all working on various components of the mission in a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where an issue arises and they raise it up to their team leader, that leader communicates with a supervisor at a different location, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” explains Nick Chester. “We give authority to team members to take charge. Moving away from managerial sign-off for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this agile methodology will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a significant degree riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
