A little more than one year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the go-ahead as Formula One’s latest entry for 2026. Establishing the team from nothing has required a frenetic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be hosted in the America, with approximately a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic team in the spring of 2023 not long after it was created, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart since then and has a amused expression when reflecting on the experience.
“There might be a brief moment thinking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he says. “And then the very next instant you think: ‘Well, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical development at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the challenge of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an Formula One team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you rarely get the chance to alter team culture.”
With each day that passes thoughts are sharper on the looming decisive point in Melbourne and targets are being handled.
“One must presume that any new team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” the team principal noted earlier this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he thought the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So we turn up and we operate well. We want to show that we are a serious contender doing the correct procedures on the track. When we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we want to show forward movement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Effort
In the summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a duo notable for their priceless expertise in operating at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the attitude of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. In my view with this setup, with this group, these personnel, there’s no reason why we won't be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with personnel now reaching in excess of 400 and intended to reach the goal of six hundred swiftly. Complementing their present headquarters at the UK base, the team are in the process of completing an main base at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the center to manufacture the power unit, set for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate organisation, contrary to the movement in F1 for increased consolidation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred.
Apollo Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” remarked the team principal shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand 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 embraced, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of project teams all tackling distinct elements of the mission at a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a process where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that manager communicates with a manager in another department, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” notes Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to handle things directly. Avoiding hierarchical consent for each action is much smoother and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this agile strategy will be evaluated in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a significant degree at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
