A little more than a full year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the official approval as the world of Formula One's most recent entrant for 2026. Establishing the team from nothing has required a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be hosted in the US, with just over a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic team in the spring of 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart since then and gets a wry smile when thinking about the experience.
“You can have a brief moment thinking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he notes. “Then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, we still have a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious seasons of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the challenge of introducing the all-American Cadillac brand, a works entry backed by the parent company, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an F1 team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you don’t get the opportunity to alter organizational mindset.”
With every day that elapses thoughts are sharper on the approaching decisive point in the Australian GP and expectations are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any new team joining the grid is going to be last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the team had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “In order that we arrive and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation executing the right things on the track. When we prove that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on progression from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Push
In the summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a pair distinguished for their invaluable experience in performing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver echoed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a difficult start, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I believe with this setup, with this group, this staff, there’s no reason why we won't be able to advance swiftly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with employees now reaching more than 400 and planned to attain the objective of six hundred quickly. In addition to their present headquarters at the UK base, the squad are in the process of building an main base at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are constructing the facility to produce the new engine, planned for the 2029 season – for now they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex structure, contrary to the trend in F1 for greater centralisation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Chester alluded.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how difficult it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all working on distinct elements of the mission across a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they report it to their manager, that leader communicates with a supervisor at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” says Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable people to handle things directly. Avoiding hierarchical consent for each action is much smoother and quicker.”
The Future
The efficacy of this agile methodology will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is no little amount on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta
