Just over a full year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the green light as the world of Formula One's most recent entrant for 2026. Building the team from nothing has required a frenetic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As F1 converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be hosted in the United States, with around three months to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic operation in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its center since then and gets a knowing grin when thinking about the ride.
“There might be five minutes thinking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he says. “Then the very next instant you realize: ‘Well, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious years of the mid-2000s and was in charge of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has truly matched the task of introducing the all-American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Establishing an F1 team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you don’t get the chance to alter cultural approach.”
With each day that passes focus are increasingly concentrated on the impending critical moment in the Australian GP and goals are being set realistically.
“You have to assume 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,” the team principal stated recently and while Chester echoed this he thought the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So we turn up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender executing the proper actions on the circuit. After we prove that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on forward movement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive
In August they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in operating at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we’re not there to finish last. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, these personnel, there’s no reason why we won't be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in top gear, with staff now at more than 400 and intended to hit the goal of six hundred rapidly. Alongside their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the phase of building an HQ at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are building the plant to produce the 2029 engine, set for the 2029 season – until then they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex organization, contrary to the movement in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred to.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” said the team principal ahead of the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we recognize how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all tackling different aspects of the project in a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that manager talks to a supervisor at a different location, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” notes Nick Chester. “So we empower team members to handle things directly. Eliminating management approval for all decisions is much smoother and quicker.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this agile approach will be proven in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is no little amount at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta
