Just over twelve months in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the official approval as Formula One’s latest entry for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from nothing has involved a intense operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac know the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be hosted in the America, with around a hundred 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 challenge, they are aware there will not be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic operation in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart since then and enjoys a knowing grin when thinking about the ride.
“You might get a short period reflecting at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we have built in less than three years,’” he notes. “And then the following moment you realize: ‘Yes, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the task of launching the all-American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an F1 team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you don’t get the chance to transform cultural approach.”
With every day that elapses minds are sharper on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and expectations are being managed.
“One must presume that any new team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated recently and while Chester shared this view he felt the squad had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he says. “So we show up and we operate well. We want to show that this is a professional operation doing the proper actions on the track. After we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show improvement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Push
In August they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their racers for the 2026 season, a pair remarkable for their priceless expertise in performing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver echoed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he said. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and we expect most likely a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, these people, there is every reason that we won't be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with employees now up to in excess of 400 and intended to reach the goal of six hundred rapidly. Complementing their present headquarters at Silverstone, the organization are in the process of completing an HQ at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are building the plant to produce the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate structure, contrary to the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred.
NASA Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how difficult it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the program in a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a process where an issue arises and they raise it up to their manager, that supervisor communicates with a manager in another department, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” explains the CTO. “We give authority to team members to take charge. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is so much cleaner and faster.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this flexible methodology will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is no little amount riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta
