Approximately twelve months in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the green light as F1's latest participant for 2026. Establishing the team from the ground up has required a hectic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One converges on Las Vegas this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the campaign to be held in the America, with around 100 days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic team in the spring of 2023 not long after it was formed, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center from that point and enjoys a knowing grin when reflecting on the experience.
“There might be five minutes reflecting at what you’ve done and think: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he says. “But then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yeah, there is still a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in command of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac name, a works entry sponsored by the owner, GM, into Formula One.
“Building an F1 team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you won't have the opportunity to change team culture.”
With every day that elapses thoughts are sharper on the impending critical moment in the Australian GP and expectations are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal stated this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So we show up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation executing the proper actions on the circuit. When we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we will focus on forward movement after that.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Push
In August they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a duo distinguished for their invaluable experience in performing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver echoed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. I believe with this setup, with these individuals, this staff, there is every reason that we can't manage to progress rapidly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To that end recruitment has been in top gear, with staff now at in excess of 400 and planned to reach the objective of 600 members rapidly. Alongside their present headquarters at the UK base, the team are in the phase of completing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are developing the center to produce the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated structure, contrary to the direction in F1 for more centralization, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Chester referred.
NASA Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” stated Graeme Lowdon just before the British GP in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we understand how tough it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on distinct elements of the mission at a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their team leader, that leader consults a supervisor at a different location, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” explains Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to really get on with it. Moving away from hierarchical consent for all decisions is much smoother and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this nimble strategy will be proven in the heat of competition next season and there is a considerable amount on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
