A little more than twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's latest entrant for the 2026 season. Building the team from scratch has involved a intense operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be hosted in the US, with approximately a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed operation in early 2023 shortly after it was created, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart from that point and has a knowing grin when thinking about the experience.
“You can have five minutes looking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Wow, how impressive what we have built in under three years,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yes, there is still a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the task of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an F1 team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you don’t get the possibility to transform organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that passes thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the impending decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.
“One must presume that any incoming team entering the sport is going to be last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the team had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So we turn up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team executing the proper actions on the track. When we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate progression subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Effort
In late summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem notable for their invaluable experience in operating at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Bottas expressed the mood of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We face a mountain of work 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. I am confident with this setup, with this group, this staff, there is every reason that we won't be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in full swing, with personnel now up to more than 400 and intended to reach the goal of 600 members swiftly. Alongside their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the process of completing an headquarters at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are building the center to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, contrary to the direction in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Chester referred.
Apollo Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” said the team principal shortly before the British Grand Prix in July. “We’re realistic, we know how tough it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, instead of the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of specialist groups all tackling different aspects of the project in a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a process where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their team leader, that manager consults a supervisor at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” says Chester. “We give authority to staff to really get on with it. Moving away from managerial sign-off for each action is far more efficient and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
