Approximately one year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the go-ahead as Formula One’s latest entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from scratch has involved a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One converges on Vegas this weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the final race of the campaign to be hosted in the United States, with approximately 100 days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the nascent project in the spring of 2023 not long after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart from that point and has a wry smile when considering the journey.
“You can have a short period thinking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he says. “Then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Nick 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 new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the mission of introducing the all-American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an F1 team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you won't have the possibility to transform organizational mindset.”
With every day that elapses thoughts are sharper on the approaching decisive point in Melbourne and goals are being handled.
“You have to assume that any incoming team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he felt the team had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So we arrive and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender doing the right things on the track. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we will focus on forward movement after that.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Drive
In August they contracted Checo Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their vast knowledge in operating at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas reflected the attitude of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to finish last. I am confident with this structure, with this group, these people, it's entirely possible we can't manage to advance swiftly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with employees now up to in excess of 400 and intended to attain the objective of six hundred quickly. Complementing their current base at the UK base, the team are in the phase of finishing an HQ at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to produce the power unit, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate structure, different from the trend in F1 for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred.
Apollo Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated the team principal ahead of the Silverstone race in July. “We are pragmatic, we understand how challenging it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
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 variety of project teams all focusing on various components of the program at a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a protocol where an issue arises and they report it to their supervisor, that manager communicates with a leader somewhere else, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says Chester. “So we empower staff to really get on with it. Eliminating management approval for everything is much smoother and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this flexible approach will be tested in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a considerable amount at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
