A little more than a full year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the go-ahead as F1's newest entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from nothing has involved a frenetic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the season finale of the season to be staged in the United States, with approximately 100 days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent team in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center from that point and enjoys a amused expression when thinking about the experience.
“You might get a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we have built in under three years,’” he says. “And then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Nick Chester had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical development at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has been quite like the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac name, a works entry supported by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Establishing an F1 team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you don’t get the opportunity to change cultural approach.”
With each day that elapses minds are increasingly concentrated on the impending decisive point in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad coming in is going to be last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he thought the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we show up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team doing the right things on the circuit. After we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Effort
In the summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their priceless expertise in competing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to finish last. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, this staff, it's entirely possible we can't manage to progress rapidly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To that end hiring has been in top gear, with employees now at more than 400 and scheduled to hit the goal of 600 members swiftly. In addition to their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the process of finishing an main base at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are building the facility to manufacture the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organization, at odds with the movement in the sport for increased consolidation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Chester alluded.
Space Mission Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” stated the team principal shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we know how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, instead of the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management similar to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all focusing on different aspects of the mission in a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a process where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their manager, that supervisor communicates with a supervisor at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” says the CTO. “Therefore we enable people to handle things directly. Avoiding management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this flexible approach will be evaluated in the pressure of racing next season and there is a considerable amount riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
