Just over one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the green light as F1's newest participant for 2026. Constructing the team from the ground up has involved a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As F1 converges on Las Vegas this weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the campaign to be held in the United States, with just over 100 days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are aware there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic project in early 2023 soon after it was created, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart from that point and has a knowing grin when thinking about the ride.
“There might be five minutes thinking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in under three years,’” he says. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Well, we still have a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Nick Chester had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical direction at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has quite compared with the mission of launching the all-American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the corporate entity, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an grand prix team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you rarely get the possibility to change cultural approach.”
With each passing day that goes by focus are sharper on the approaching decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being handled.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he believed the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So we arrive and we operate well. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender performing the right things on the track. After we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Effort
In late summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for the 2026 season, a pair notable for their invaluable experience in operating at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the mood of combative optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a difficult start, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I believe given this organization, with these individuals, this staff, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with staff now up to more than 400 and intended to attain the objective of 600 members swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at the UK base, the team are in the midst of finishing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to produce the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, different from the trend in F1 for greater centralisation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Chester referred.
Apollo Inspiration
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” stated Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how difficult it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Well, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, instead of the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of project teams all working on various components of the mission in a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that leader consults a manager in another department, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” says Nick Chester. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Eliminating hierarchical consent for all decisions is so much cleaner and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this nimble methodology will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a significant degree at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
