A little more than one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the green light as F1's latest entry for 2026. Constructing the squad from nothing has involved a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the campaign to be hosted in the United States, with just over three months to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic team in the spring of 2023 soon after it was created, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart from that point and has a wry smile when thinking about the ride.
“There might be a brief moment looking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Wow, how impressive what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “Then the following moment you consider: ‘Well, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the challenge of introducing the all-American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an grand prix team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you don’t get the opportunity to alter team culture.”
With each day that passes minds are increasingly concentrated on the looming critical moment in Australia and targets are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any new team joining the grid is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while Nick Chester shared this view he believed the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he says. “So we arrive and we function efficiently. We want to show that we’re a proper team performing the correct procedures on the circuit. When we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Effort
In the summer they signed Checo Pérez and Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo notable for their invaluable experience in performing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver expressed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and we expect probably a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe given this organization, with these individuals, these personnel, there is every reason that we can't manage to get relatively quickly to the front and achieve good results.”
To that end recruitment has been in top gear, with employees now reaching more than 400 and planned to attain the objective of 600 quickly. In addition to their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the phase of completing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to build the new engine, set for the 2029 season – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organization, different from the trend in the sport for increased consolidation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Chester alluded.
NASA Model
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Lowdon shortly before the British GP in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how tough it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, instead of the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management similar to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all tackling different aspects of the project in a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where an issue arises and they raise it up to their manager, that supervisor talks to a supervisor somewhere else, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” explains Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable people to really get on with it. Avoiding hierarchical consent for all decisions is far more efficient and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this flexible approach will be proven in the heat of competition next season and there is a significant degree on the line for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their reserve driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
