A little more than one year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the official approval as the world of Formula One's newest entrant for 2026. Building the organization from nothing has entailed a frenetic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 converges on Vegas this race weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the season to be staged in the United States, with just over a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent project in March 2023 not long after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core since then and enjoys a knowing grin when reflecting on the ride.
“You might get five minutes looking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we’ve done in under three years,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Well, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Task
Chester had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has quite compared with the mission of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the parent company, 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. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you don’t get the chance to transform team culture.”
With each passing day that goes by minds are sharper on the impending moment of truth in Australia and goals are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any incoming team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal noted this year and while Chester echoed this he felt the team had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we should be there,” he says. “So we arrive and we operate well. We want to show that we are a serious contender doing the proper actions on the circuit. After we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on progression after that.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Effort
In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their invaluable experience in performing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver echoed the mood of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he commented. “There’s going to be 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 finish last. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, these personnel, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in overdrive, with personnel now at over 400 and planned to hit the objective of 600 members rapidly. In addition to their present headquarters at Silverstone, the team are in the midst of completing an main base at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are building the plant to build the power unit, set for the 2029 season – for now they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, at odds with the direction in Formula One for more centralization, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred to.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” stated Lowdon shortly before the British GP in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how difficult it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all working on different aspects of the program at a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a process where a challenge emerges and they report it to their team leader, that supervisor consults a leader at a different location, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” notes the CTO. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Avoiding management approval for everything is so much cleaner and faster.”
The Future
The success of this agile approach will be proven in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a significant degree at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
