Approximately twelve months previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the official approval as Formula One’s latest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from the ground up has involved a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be staged in the United States, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic team in March 2023 shortly after it was established, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its center ever since and has a knowing grin when considering the ride.
“There might be a short period thinking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “Then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Creating an Formula One team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you won't have the possibility to transform team culture.”
With every day that goes by minds are more focused on the approaching decisive point in Australia and expectations are being handled.
“One must presume that any new team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon commented recently and while Chester echoed this he believed the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So that we turn up and we operate well. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation performing the right things on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we will focus on improvement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Drive
In the summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a pair notable for their priceless expertise in performing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the mood of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I believe with this setup, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to the front and taste victory.”
To that end hiring has been in overdrive, with personnel now up to over 400 and intended to attain the goal of 600 members quickly. In addition to their existing facility at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of finishing an HQ at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the center to build the new engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – until then they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, different from the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester alluded.
Space Mission Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” remarked Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British GP in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we know how tough it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, instead of the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of project teams all working on distinct elements of the program across a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their manager, that leader consults a leader at a different location, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” explains Chester. “Therefore we enable people to really get on with it. Eliminating managerial sign-off for each action is much smoother and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this flexible methodology will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a significant degree at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
