Just over one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the official approval as Formula One’s latest participant for 2026. Establishing the squad from scratch has required a frenetic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport converges on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the final race of the championship to be staged in the United States, with just over 100 days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent team in early 2023 not long after it was formed, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart since then and has a wry smile when reflecting on the experience.
“You might get a short period reflecting at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Wow, how impressive what we’ve done in under three years,’” Chester states. “And then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Chester had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the task of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a factory team sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an grand prix team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you rarely get the chance to transform team culture.”
With every day that elapses minds are sharper on the impending critical moment in Australia and expectations are being managed.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he believed the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we turn up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation doing the correct procedures on the race track. After we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on progression from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Effort
In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a duo distinguished for their priceless expertise in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas expressed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. In my view given this organization, with this group, these people, it's entirely possible we can't manage to progress rapidly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in top gear, with employees now reaching over 400 and scheduled to reach the goal of 600 members quickly. Complementing their current base at Silverstone, the team are in the process of finishing an HQ at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to produce the 2029 engine, planned for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex structure, at odds with the movement in F1 for increased consolidation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Chester referred to.
Space Mission Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” said the team principal shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we recognize how difficult it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the program at a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where an issue arises and they raise it up to their supervisor, that leader communicates with a supervisor somewhere else, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” says Chester. “So we empower team members to really get on with it. Moving away from management approval for everything is far more efficient and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this agile methodology will be evaluated in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a considerable amount at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta
