A little more than one year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the green light as F1's latest entrant for 2026. Building the squad from the ground up has entailed a intense operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be staged in the America, with around 100 days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are aware there will not be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent team in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart from that point and enjoys a wry smile when considering the ride.
“There might be five minutes looking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we have built in under three years,’” he notes. “And then the following moment you realize: ‘Yes, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Task
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical direction at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has truly matched the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the parent company, GM, into F1.
“Building an F1 team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you rarely get the opportunity to change organizational mindset.”
With each day that goes by focus are sharper on the impending moment of truth in Australia and expectations are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad entering the sport is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So that we turn up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender performing the right things on the race track. When we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive
In August they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a duo notable for their invaluable experience in performing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver expressed the mood of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. In my view with this structure, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we can't manage to get relatively quickly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in top gear, with employees now reaching over 400 and planned to hit the target of six hundred rapidly. Alongside their existing facility at Silverstone, the squad are in the midst of completing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are developing the center to produce the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will use power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, at odds with the trend in F1 for more centralization, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred.
Apollo Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” said the team principal just before the British GP in July. “We are pragmatic, we know how tough it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure similar to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all tackling various components of the program at a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their team leader, that leader talks to a supervisor somewhere else, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” notes Nick Chester. “We give authority to people to really get on with it. Moving away from hierarchical consent for everything is far more efficient and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this nimble methodology will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a considerable amount at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
