Just over one year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the official approval as Formula One’s most recent entrant for 2026. Building the squad from nothing has involved a intense operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 arrives on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be hosted in the America, with approximately a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are cognizant there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the nascent operation in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was established, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core ever since and enjoys a wry smile when thinking about the journey.
“You can have a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what the team has created in less than three years,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you consider: ‘Well, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has quite compared with the challenge of launching the iconic American Cadillac name, a factory team backed by the parent company, GM, into F1.
“Creating an grand prix team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you don’t get the possibility to alter cultural approach.”
With every day that goes by thoughts are sharper on the impending moment of truth in Australia and goals are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any incoming team coming in is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal noted this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So we show up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender doing the proper actions on the race track. When we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show progression after that.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Drive
In the summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a pair remarkable for their vast knowledge in performing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the mood of determined optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I believe with this structure, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in full swing, with staff now at in excess of 400 and planned to reach the objective of 600 members rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the process of building an HQ at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – until then they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, contrary to the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Chester referred to.
Space Mission Model
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we know how difficult it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. OK, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, instead of the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of project teams all working on distinct elements of the project in a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a process where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that supervisor communicates with a supervisor in another department, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” says Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to really get on with it. Eliminating hierarchical consent for everything is so much cleaner and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this nimble approach will be tested in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a considerable amount on the line for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
