Just over one year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the green light as F1's latest entrant for 2026. Constructing the organization from nothing has involved a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the season to be hosted in the America, with just over 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic team in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was created, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core from that point and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the experience.
“You can have five minutes looking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in less than three years,’” he notes. “But then the next minute you realize: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a factory team backed by the owner, GM, into F1.
“Building an Formula One team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you rarely get the opportunity to change cultural approach.”
With each passing day that goes by thoughts are sharper on the approaching critical moment in the Australian GP and expectations are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any incoming team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal noted recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the organization had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So that we show up and we operate well. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team performing the proper actions on the track. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Effort
In late summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their invaluable experience in operating at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Bottas expressed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We face a massive task to do, and it’s going to be probably a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I am confident with this structure, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we can't manage to advance swiftly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To that end recruitment has been in top gear, with employees now reaching in excess of 400 and planned to reach the objective of 600 members swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at Silverstone, the organization are in the phase of building an main base at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are developing the plant to manufacture the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex organization, at odds with the direction in F1 for greater centralisation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred.
Space Mission Model
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” stated the team principal ahead of the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how challenging it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, instead of the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all working on various components of the mission in a different facilities.
“When you must follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their supervisor, that manager communicates with a supervisor in another department, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to handle things directly. Avoiding hierarchical consent for each action is far more efficient and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be tested in the pressure of racing next season and there is no little amount on the line for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
