Approximately twelve months in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the official approval as the world of Formula One's most recent entry for 2026. Building the team from scratch has required a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the season finale of the season to be held in the United States, with just over 100 days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic project in March 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core since then and gets a amused expression when thinking about the ride.
“You can have a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he says. “And then the very next instant you consider: ‘Well, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has quite compared with the challenge of introducing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a works entry sponsored by the owner, GM, into F1.
“Establishing an grand prix team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you don’t get the opportunity to transform cultural approach.”
With each day that elapses thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the impending decisive point in Australia and targets are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any new team coming in is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon noted this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he felt the team had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So that we arrive and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender doing the proper actions on the track. After we prove that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate improvement after that.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Drive
In late summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair notable for their invaluable experience in competing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and we expect most likely a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to stay at the back. In my view with this structure, with this team, these people, there is every reason that we won't be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in top gear, with personnel now reaching more than 400 and intended to attain the goal of 600 quickly. In addition to their present headquarters at the UK base, the team are in the midst of completing an main base at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are building the center to manufacture the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organisation, different from the direction in Formula One for more centralization, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in July. “We’re realistic, we know how tough it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all tackling distinct elements of the project at a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a process where someone has a problem and they report it to their manager, that leader consults a supervisor at a different location, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” says the CTO. “We give authority to staff to handle things directly. Moving away from hierarchical consent for all decisions is much smoother and quicker.”
The Future
The efficacy of this agile methodology will be evaluated in the pressure of racing next season and there is a considerable amount at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
