Just over one year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the go-ahead as F1's newest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from scratch has entailed a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 descends on Las Vegas this weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the campaign to be hosted in the America, with just over 100 days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic team in March 2023 soon after it was created, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center ever since and enjoys a amused expression when considering the experience.
“There might be five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “And then the very next instant you consider: ‘Well, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Chester achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has been quite like the challenge of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Creating an Formula One team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you won't have the possibility to transform cultural approach.”
With each passing day that passes focus are increasingly concentrated on the impending critical moment in Australia and expectations are being managed.
“One must presume that any new team entering the sport is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” the team principal stated earlier this year and while Chester shared this view he felt the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we show up and we operate well. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation doing the proper actions on the race track. When we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on forward movement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Effort
In the summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a duo distinguished for their priceless expertise in operating at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas echoed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he said. “We have a massive task to do, and we expect most likely a tough opening, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I am confident with this structure, with this team, these personnel, there is every reason that we won't be able to get relatively quickly to the front and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in full swing, with employees now reaching more than 400 and scheduled to reach the target of six hundred swiftly. In addition to their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of building an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are building the center to manufacture the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex structure, at odds with the direction in F1 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,” said the team principal just before the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, rather than the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management similar to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all working on distinct elements of the mission in a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where an issue arises and they report it to their manager, that supervisor consults a leader somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” says Chester. “Therefore we enable people to really get on with it. Moving away from managerial sign-off for everything is far more efficient and faster.”
The Future
The success of this nimble methodology will be evaluated in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a significant degree riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
