Just over twelve months previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the green light as the world of Formula One's most recent entry for 2026. Constructing the squad from the ground up has required a frenetic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the final race of the campaign to be held in the United States, with around 100 days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are cognizant there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the nascent operation in March 2023 not long after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the ride.
“You can have a brief moment looking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “But then the very next instant you think: ‘Well, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical development at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has been quite like the challenge of bringing the all-American Cadillac marque, a factory team backed by the parent company, GM, into Formula One.
“Establishing an F1 team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you won't have the opportunity to transform cultural approach.”
With each day that passes minds are increasingly concentrated on the looming critical moment in Australia and goals are being managed.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal noted recently and while Chester echoed this he thought the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So we turn up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team executing the proper actions on the circuit. When we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we will focus on improvement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Drive
In the summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a duo notable for their invaluable experience in competing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, these personnel, there’s no reason why we can't manage to advance swiftly to the front and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in top gear, with staff now at more than 400 and planned to hit the target of 600 members rapidly. Complementing their current base at Silverstone, the team are in the process of completing an HQ at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are building the plant to produce the power unit, planned for 2029 – for now they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex structure, at odds with the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Chester referred to.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” stated the team principal shortly before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we understand how difficult it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of project teams all tackling distinct elements of the program at a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a protocol where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor communicates with a manager somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” says the CTO. “So we empower staff to handle things directly. Avoiding hierarchical consent for everything is far more efficient and faster.”
The Future
The success of this agile approach will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
