Just over a full year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the go-ahead as F1's newest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from nothing has involved a hectic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be held in the US, with just over three months to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in March 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart since then and has a wry smile when thinking about the journey.
“You can have five minutes reflecting at what you’ve done and go: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we have built in less than three years,’” he says. “But then the very next instant you think: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Nick Chester had success at Renault in Alonso's title-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical direction at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has been quite like the mission of introducing the all-American Cadillac marque, a factory team sponsored by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an grand prix team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you won't have the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”
With every day that passes focus are more focused on the impending critical moment in Melbourne and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad entering the sport is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted this year and while Chester shared this view he felt the organization had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he says. “In order that we show up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation doing the right things on the race track. Once we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on progression from there on.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Push
In the summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem notable for their priceless expertise in operating at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Bottas echoed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We have a massive task to do, and we expect probably 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 personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in top gear, with personnel now at more than 400 and intended to attain the target of 600 members swiftly. Alongside their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the phase of building an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to produce the power unit, planned for 2029 – until then they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, contrary to the trend in the sport for greater centralisation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which the CTO alluded.
Apollo Inspiration
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” stated the team principal shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we recognize how difficult it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, rather than the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all working on distinct elements of the project at a different facilities.
“When you must follow a protocol where an issue arises and they raise it up to their manager, that manager communicates with a leader at a different location, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” says the CTO. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Moving away from managerial sign-off for everything is much smoother and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this flexible approach will be tested in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is no little amount on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
