A little more than a full year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the go-ahead as F1's most recent participant for the 2026 season. Building the team from scratch has involved a frenetic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 converges on Las Vegas this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be hosted in the US, with just over 100 days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the nascent operation in March 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart from that point and has a knowing grin when thinking about the ride.
“There might be a brief moment reflecting at what you’ve done and think: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what the team has created in less than three years,’” he notes. “Then the following moment you think: ‘Yes, we still have a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's victorious seasons of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the challenge of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Creating an F1 team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you rarely get the chance to alter organizational mindset.”
With every day that elapses minds are increasingly concentrated on the looming moment of truth in Melbourne and goals are being handled.
“You have to assume that any new team coming in is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while Chester echoed this he thought the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So that we arrive and we operate well. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender executing the correct procedures on the race track. After we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement after that.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Effort
In August they signed Checo Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a pair remarkable for their invaluable experience in operating at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver echoed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We have a mountain of work to do, and we expect most likely a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to finish last. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, this staff, it's entirely possible we can't manage to progress rapidly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in full swing, with personnel now reaching over 400 and intended to attain the goal of 600 rapidly. Alongside their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the process of finishing an headquarters at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to build the power unit, set for 2029 – for now they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex structure, at odds with the trend in the sport for more centralization, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester alluded.
NASA Blueprint
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” stated the team principal ahead of the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, instead of the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of project teams all tackling distinct elements of the project across a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a process where an issue arises and they report it to their manager, that leader consults a leader somewhere else, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” notes the CTO. “Therefore we enable people to take charge. Eliminating hierarchical consent for all decisions is far more efficient and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this flexible approach will be proven in the pressure of racing next season and there is a considerable amount at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
