Just over a full year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the go-ahead as F1's most recent participant for 2026. Constructing the team from the ground up has involved a hectic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the championship to be staged in the America, with just over three months to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in March 2023 shortly after it was created, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its center from that point and gets a amused expression when reflecting on the ride.
“You can have five minutes looking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Wow, how impressive what we have built in less than three years,’” he says. “Then the very next instant you consider: ‘Well, we still have a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in Alonso's title-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the task of bringing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a factory team supported by the corporate entity, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an Formula One team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you rarely get the opportunity to transform cultural approach.”
With every day that passes focus are sharper on the looming critical moment in Melbourne and expectations are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad coming in is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” the team principal commented recently and while the CTO shared this view he believed the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we show up and we operate well. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender executing the right things on the circuit. After we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Push
In August they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem notable for their priceless expertise in performing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Bottas expressed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We face a mountain of work to do, and we expect most likely a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe with this structure, with this group, these personnel, there is every reason that we won't be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in top gear, with personnel now at over 400 and intended to hit the objective of 600 quickly. In addition to their current base at Silverstone, the team are in the process of building an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to produce the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organization, at odds with the movement in the sport for increased consolidation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred.
Space Mission Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” stated the team principal ahead of the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we know how difficult it is. The deadlines, 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 conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of project teams all focusing on various components of the mission in a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a process where an issue arises and they escalate it to their supervisor, that leader communicates with a supervisor somewhere else, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to take charge. Moving away from management approval for all decisions is much smoother and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this flexible approach will be proven in the heat of competition next season and there is a significant degree riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
