Approximately one year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the official approval as the world of Formula One's most recent entry for 2026. Constructing the squad from nothing has required a hectic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on Vegas this weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be hosted in the United States, with just over three months to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent operation in March 2023 shortly after it was created, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center from that point and has a wry smile when considering the ride.
“There might be a brief moment looking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in less than three years,’” he says. “And then the very next instant you think: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the mission of launching the all-American Cadillac brand, a factory team backed by the owner, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an F1 team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you won't have the possibility to transform cultural approach.”
With each passing day that elapses thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the impending decisive point in Melbourne and expectations are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any new team coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented recently and while Chester shared this view he believed the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So we turn up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team performing the right things on the race track. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we want to show forward movement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Push
In the summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a duo remarkable for their invaluable experience in operating at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a tough opening, because it is F1. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I am confident with this structure, with these individuals, these personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to the front and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in full swing, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and planned to attain the target of six hundred quickly. Alongside their current base at the UK base, the team are in the midst of building an headquarters at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to manufacture the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate structure, contrary to the movement in Formula One for more centralization, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester alluded.
Space Mission Model
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” stated Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, instead of the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of project teams all focusing on different aspects of the mission across a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a protocol where an issue arises and they escalate it to their team leader, that leader talks to a manager at a different location, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” notes the CTO. “We give authority to staff to really get on with it. Moving away from management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this nimble approach will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is no little amount at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
