Just over twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the go-ahead as F1's latest entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from scratch has involved a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As Formula One arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be hosted in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent team in March 2023 soon after it was established, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart ever since and enjoys a amused expression when thinking about the journey.
“You might get five minutes reflecting at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what the team has created in under three years,’” he notes. “And then the next minute you think: ‘Yes, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious seasons of the mid-2000s and was in charge of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has truly matched the challenge of bringing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a factory team sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you won't have the chance to transform team culture.”
With each passing day that passes focus are increasingly concentrated on the looming moment of truth in the Australian GP and goals are being managed.
“One must presume that any incoming team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So we show up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender doing the right things on the race track. When we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement after that.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Drive
In the summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a pair remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas echoed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and we expect most likely a difficult start, because it is F1. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I believe with this structure, with this team, these people, there is every reason that we won't be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in top gear, with personnel now up to over 400 and scheduled to hit the target of six hundred quickly. Complementing their present headquarters at Silverstone, the team are in the phase of building an main base at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the power unit, scheduled for the 2029 season – for now they will run power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a complex organisation, at odds with the trend in F1 for greater centralisation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred to.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” said Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in July. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of project teams all tackling various components of the project at a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a process where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their team leader, that supervisor consults a leader in another department, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” notes Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to take charge. Avoiding management approval for everything is far more efficient and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this flexible approach will be proven in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is no little amount on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
