🔗 Share this article

Approximately twelve months in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's latest participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from the ground up has required a hectic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 arrives on Vegas this race weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.

The Tight Timeline to Australia

At the season finale of the championship to be held in the United States, with approximately 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.

The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic team in March 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its center since then and gets a amused expression when reflecting on the journey.

“You might get a brief moment reflecting at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Wow, how impressive what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he says. “But then the following moment you realize: ‘Yeah, there is still a significant amount to do.’”

A One-of-a-Kind Task

Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault 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 previous experience has truly matched the task of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors, into F1.

“Building an grand prix team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the opportunity to change cultural approach.”

With each day that elapses focus are increasingly concentrated on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and goals are being set realistically.

“One must presume that any incoming team joining the grid is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he believed the team had a reputation to build as well.

“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So we arrive and we operate well. We want to show that this is a professional operation performing the right things on the race track. After we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement from there on.”

Pilot Selection and Team Building Effort

In August they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for the 2026 season, a pair distinguished for their vast knowledge in competing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the sentiment of combative optimism.

“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We have a mountain of work to do, and we expect probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. In my view with this structure, with this team, these people, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”

To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in full swing, with employees now at more than 400 and intended to hit the objective of 600 members rapidly. Complementing their present headquarters at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of finishing an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to produce the new engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – for now they will use Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a complex organisation, different from the movement in the sport for more centralization, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred.

Apollo Blueprint

“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” remarked the team principal shortly before the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we know how difficult it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”

So they have adopted, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all focusing on various components of the project across a variety of locations.

“In a system where you follow a process where someone has a problem and they report it to their manager, that leader consults a supervisor somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says Chester. “We give authority to staff to take charge. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is far more efficient and quicker.”

Upcoming Challenges

The success of this flexible strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta