Just over twelve months previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the green light as Formula One’s most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from scratch has entailed a hectic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As F1 descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the campaign to be held in the United States, with approximately three months to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent operation in the spring of 2023 soon after it was formed, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart ever since and gets a amused expression when reflecting on the journey.
“You can have a short period reflecting at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Wow, how impressive what the team has created in less than three years,’” he notes. “Then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the challenge of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a works entry sponsored by the owner, GM, into Formula One.
“Building an grand prix team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you won't have the opportunity to transform team culture.”
With each day that elapses minds are more focused on the approaching moment of truth in the Australian GP and targets are being handled.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad coming in is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented recently and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So that we show up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender executing the correct procedures on the track. After we prove that we’re really credible, then we will focus on improvement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Push
In the summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem notable for their priceless expertise in operating at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I am confident with this setup, with this group, these personnel, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in full swing, with staff now reaching more than 400 and scheduled to hit the objective of six hundred quickly. Alongside their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the midst of finishing an headquarters at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are building the center to produce the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex structure, different from the direction in F1 for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred to.
NASA Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” said Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how challenging it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, rather than the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all focusing on various components of the project at a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their supervisor, that manager communicates with a leader somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” notes Chester. “We give authority to team members to take charge. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is much smoother and quicker.”
The Future
The success of this agile methodology will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is no little amount riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
