A little more than twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the go-ahead as Formula One’s most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from nothing has required a frenetic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport arrives on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be held in the United States, with approximately three months to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in early 2023 not long after it was formed, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core from that point and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the experience.
“You can have five minutes reflecting at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Yeah, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical development at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the challenge of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the owner, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an Formula One team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you rarely get the possibility to change organizational mindset.”
With every day that goes by focus are increasingly concentrated on the looming moment of truth in Australia and expectations are being managed.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad coming in is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we turn up and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation performing the correct procedures on the circuit. When we prove that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate progression after that.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Push
In August they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo remarkable for their invaluable experience in competing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the mood of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to finish last. I am confident given this organization, with this group, these personnel, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in overdrive, with staff now up to more than 400 and intended to reach the objective of 600 members swiftly. In addition to their current base at Silverstone, the organization are in the phase of completing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to produce the new engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex structure, contrary to the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred.
NASA Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon just before the British GP in July. “We are pragmatic, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on various components of the project at a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that leader talks to a leader at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” explains Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to take charge. Eliminating management approval for everything is much smoother and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this agile approach will be tested in the heat of competition next season and there is a significant degree riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
