A little more than one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the green light as F1's newest entry for 2026. Building the team from nothing has entailed a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 descends on Vegas this race weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the championship to be held in the America, with just over 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic team in March 2023 soon after it was formed, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart from that point and enjoys a knowing grin when thinking about the ride.
“You can have a short period thinking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what the team has created in less than three years,’” he says. “And then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's victorious years of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has truly matched the mission of launching the iconic American Cadillac brand, a factory team sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into F1.
“Creating an grand prix team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you won't have the possibility to transform cultural approach.”
With each passing day that passes thoughts are more focused on the approaching critical moment in Melbourne and goals are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad entering the sport is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” the team principal noted recently and while the CTO shared this view he thought the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we show up and we function efficiently. We want to show that we are a serious contender doing the right things on the race track. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Effort
In the summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair notable for their vast knowledge in competing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the mood of determined optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. In my view with this structure, with these individuals, these people, there is every reason that we can't manage to advance swiftly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in full swing, with staff now at over 400 and intended to attain the target of 600 rapidly. Complementing their existing facility at the UK base, the team are in the midst of finishing an main base at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are constructing the plant to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organization, at odds with the trend in F1 for more centralization, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Chester referred to.
NASA Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we understand how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a decentralized management akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of project teams all tackling different aspects of the project in a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a protocol where an issue arises and they escalate it to their team leader, that leader talks to a supervisor somewhere else, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” notes the CTO. “So we empower team members to handle things directly. Avoiding managerial sign-off for all decisions is much smoother and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this flexible approach will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a significant degree on the line for the sport, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
