A little more than twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's newest entry for 2026. Constructing the team from the ground up has involved a intense pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 arrives on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the season to be held in the United States, with around three months to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed project in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core ever since and has a wry smile when thinking about the ride.
“You can have five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “But then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yeah, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
Nick Chester had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical direction at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the task of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a factory team backed by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Building an grand prix team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you won't have the opportunity to change cultural approach.”
With each passing day that goes by focus are increasingly concentrated on the impending moment of truth in Melbourne and expectations are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any incoming team coming in is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he thought the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “In order that we arrive and we operate well. We want to show that we are a serious contender doing the correct procedures on the circuit. When we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on forward movement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Drive
In August they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a tandem remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas echoed the mood of combative optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We have a massive task to do, and it’s going to be most likely a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. In my view with this setup, with this team, these personnel, there is every reason that we won't be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and intended to reach the target of 600 quickly. Alongside their current base at Silverstone, the team are in the phase of building 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 power unit, planned for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate organization, contrary to the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Chester referred.
Apollo Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” stated Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the program at a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a procedure where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their team leader, that supervisor communicates with a manager somewhere else, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” says Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to handle things directly. Avoiding management approval for all decisions is so much cleaner and quicker.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this agile strategy will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is no little amount at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
