Approximately a full year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the go-ahead as Formula One’s latest entry for 2026. Constructing the squad from the ground up has required a hectic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be staged in the United States, with around a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed project in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was established, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its center since then and enjoys a amused expression when reflecting on the journey.
“There might be five minutes thinking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we have built in under three years,’” Chester states. “But then the very next instant you realize: ‘Well, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in Alonso's victorious seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical direction at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an F1 team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you don’t get the chance to alter cultural approach.”
With each passing day that elapses thoughts are sharper on the looming critical moment in Melbourne and goals 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 achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented recently and while Chester shared this view he thought the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we turn up and we perform competently. We want to show that we’re a proper team performing the proper actions on the race track. After we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on progression after that.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Push
In the summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem notable for their vast knowledge in operating at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas expressed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a massive task to do, and we expect almost certainly a tough opening, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to finish last. I am confident given this organization, with this team, these personnel, there’s no reason why we won't be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with staff now at in excess of 400 and intended to attain the goal of 600 quickly. Complementing their present headquarters at Silverstone, the team are in the phase of finishing an main base at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to manufacture the power unit, set for 2029 – until then they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex organization, at odds with the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred to.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in July. “We’re realistic, we know how tough it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. OK, 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 decentralized management similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all focusing on various components of the program at a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a protocol where a challenge emerges and they report it to their manager, that supervisor consults a manager in another department, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” says Chester. “So we empower team members to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is so much cleaner and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this flexible approach will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a considerable amount at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
