Approximately a full year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the official approval as F1's latest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from scratch has required a intense operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One descends on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be hosted in the United States, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the nascent operation in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the ride.
“You can have five minutes reflecting at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we have built in under three years,’” he notes. “But then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Chester achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the mission of introducing the iconic American Cadillac name, a factory team supported by the owner, GM, into Formula One.
“Establishing an Formula One team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you rarely get the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”
With each day that passes minds are sharper on the impending decisive point in Australia and targets are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any incoming team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon commented this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the organization had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we turn up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation doing the correct procedures on the track. After we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show progression after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive
In August they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair distinguished for their vast knowledge in competing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the mood of combative optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We have a mountain of work to do, and we expect probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to finish last. I believe given this organization, with these individuals, these personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To that end hiring has been in top gear, with staff now up to in excess of 400 and intended to reach the objective of 600 rapidly. Complementing their present headquarters at Silverstone, the organization are in the process of building an HQ at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are building the center to produce the new engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex organization, at odds with the trend in the sport for more centralization, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred.
Apollo Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” stated Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British GP in July. “We are pragmatic, we know how challenging it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a range of project teams all tackling different aspects of the project across a different facilities.
“When you must follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their manager, that leader talks to a supervisor at a different location, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” notes Nick Chester. “So we empower people to handle things directly. Avoiding management approval for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this flexible approach will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a considerable amount on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
