Approximately one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the official approval as Formula One’s latest participant for 2026. Building the team from the ground up has entailed a frenetic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One descends on Las Vegas this weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be held in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core ever since and gets a knowing grin when thinking about the journey.
“There might be a short period reflecting at what you’ve done and go: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the following moment you think: ‘Yes, there is still a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the task of introducing the all-American Cadillac brand, a factory team backed by the corporate entity, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Building an grand prix team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you don’t get the chance to change team culture.”
With every day that passes focus are sharper on the looming decisive point in Australia and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team coming in is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” the team principal commented earlier this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he believed the team had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So we turn up and we operate well. We want to show that we are a serious contender performing the right things on the track. When we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we want to show forward movement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Effort
In late summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a duo distinguished for their priceless expertise in operating at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Bottas expressed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We have a massive task to do, and it will likely be probably a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. In my view with this setup, with these individuals, this staff, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To that end hiring has been in full swing, with personnel now up to more than 400 and scheduled to reach the goal of six hundred rapidly. Alongside their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the phase of completing an HQ at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to manufacture the power unit, set for the 2029 season – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate organization, at odds with the movement in the sport for increased consolidation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated the team principal shortly before the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we recognize how challenging it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all working on distinct elements of the program in a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a procedure where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor communicates with a supervisor at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” notes Nick Chester. “So we empower people to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for all decisions is so much cleaner and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this agile strategy will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is no little amount on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
