A little more than twelve months in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's latest entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from the ground up has entailed a hectic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 converges on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be hosted in the US, with just over 100 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 made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed project in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart ever since and enjoys a wry smile when reflecting on the ride.
“You might get a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we’ve done in less than three years,’” Chester states. “And then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious seasons of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical development at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the mission of launching the all-American Cadillac brand, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an grand prix team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you rarely get the opportunity to change cultural approach.”
With each day that passes minds are sharper on the looming critical moment in Melbourne and targets are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team joining the grid is going to be last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal commented earlier this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he believed the organization had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So that we arrive and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation performing the right things on the circuit. After we prove that we’re really credible, then we will focus on forward movement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Push
In late summer they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a duo distinguished for their invaluable experience in competing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas echoed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and we expect probably a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to finish last. In my view given this organization, with this group, these personnel, it's entirely possible we won't be able to progress rapidly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To that end recruitment has been in top gear, with employees now up to over 400 and scheduled to attain the target of 600 members swiftly. Alongside their current base at the UK base, the team are in the midst of building an headquarters at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to produce the 2029 engine, set for the 2029 season – until then they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organization, at odds with the trend in F1 for more centralization, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which the CTO alluded.
Space Mission Model
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” stated Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in July. “We’re realistic, we recognize how tough it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a decentralized management comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all focusing on distinct elements of the program in a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where an issue arises and they raise it up to their team leader, that supervisor consults a supervisor in another department, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” notes Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to really get on with it. Moving away from managerial sign-off for each action is much smoother and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a significant degree riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
