Approximately one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's latest entrant for the 2026 season. Building the squad from nothing has entailed a intense pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport arrives on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac understand the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be hosted in the US, with just over 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent project in March 2023 not long after it was established, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart ever since and has a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“You might get a short period looking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “But then the next minute you consider: ‘Yes, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious seasons of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the mission of introducing the all-American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the parent company, GM, into F1.
“Building an grand prix team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you don’t get the opportunity to change team culture.”
With each passing day that elapses thoughts are sharper on the looming critical moment in the Australian GP and targets are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team coming in is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Chester shared this view he believed the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we arrive and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation performing the right things on the track. After we prove that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate improvement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Effort
In late summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a duo distinguished for their vast knowledge in competing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas reflected the attitude of determined optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and we expect most likely a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. In my view with this structure, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we won't be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To that end hiring has been in full swing, with personnel now reaching more than 400 and scheduled to hit the goal of 600 swiftly. Alongside their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the process of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to manufacture the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex organisation, different from the movement in F1 for more centralization, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred.
Space Mission Model
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” stated the team principal ahead of the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, rather than the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of project teams all tackling distinct elements of the mission at a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a procedure where someone has a problem and they report it to their manager, that supervisor communicates with a leader somewhere else, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” says the CTO. “Therefore we enable team members to handle things directly. Avoiding management approval for all decisions is much smoother and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a considerable amount at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
