A little more than twelve months in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the green light as F1's latest participant for the 2026 season. Building the squad from the ground up has entailed a frenetic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport converges on Vegas this weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the last event of the season to be hosted in the America, with around three months to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are cognizant there will not be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic team in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center ever since and has a knowing grin when reflecting on the experience.
“You might get a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “But then the next minute you consider: ‘Well, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in Alonso's title-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in control of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the mission of introducing the all-American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, GM, into F1.
“Creating an F1 team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you don’t get the opportunity to change organizational mindset.”
With each day that passes focus are more focused on the looming moment of truth in Melbourne and goals are being managed.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he thought the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we arrive and we function efficiently. We want to show that this is a professional operation doing the right things on the circuit. When we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate improvement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Effort
In the summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a duo notable for their invaluable experience in performing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver expressed the mood of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to finish last. In my view given this organization, with these individuals, this staff, there’s no reason why we won't be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with personnel now at more than 400 and intended to reach the target of 600 swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at Silverstone, the team are in the process of completing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are building the facility to manufacture the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organization, different from the direction in F1 for more centralization, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred.
NASA Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” said Graeme Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in July. “We are pragmatic, we understand how challenging it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, rather than the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all focusing on various components of the program in a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a protocol where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their supervisor, that leader consults a leader in another department, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” notes the CTO. “So we empower team members to handle things directly. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta
