A little more than one year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the go-ahead as Formula One’s latest participant for 2026. Constructing the organization from the ground up has entailed a frenetic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport descends on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the season to be held in the US, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic operation in March 2023 soon after it was established, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart since then and has a wry smile when reflecting on the ride.
“You can have a short period thinking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in under three years,’” Chester states. “But then the very next instant you realize: ‘Well, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Task
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical development at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the mission of introducing the iconic American Cadillac name, a works entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors, into F1.
“Creating an grand prix team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you rarely get the possibility to change team culture.”
With each day that passes focus are sharper on the approaching decisive point in Australia and expectations 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,” Lowdon stated recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So we arrive and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender executing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate improvement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Drive
In August they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a pair notable for their priceless expertise in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the mood of combative optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I am confident with this setup, with this group, this staff, it's entirely possible we won't be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To that end hiring has been in top gear, with personnel now reaching more than 400 and intended to attain the objective of six hundred quickly. Alongside their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the process of building an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to produce the power unit, planned for 2029 – until then they will use power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a intricate structure, different from the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester alluded.
NASA Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we recognize how challenging it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of project teams all focusing on different aspects of the mission at a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a procedure where an issue arises and they report it to their team leader, that leader talks to a manager somewhere else, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” says Chester. “So we empower team members to take charge. Moving away from hierarchical consent for everything is far more efficient and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this nimble strategy will be tested in the pressure of racing next season and there is no little amount riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
