Just over twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the official approval as F1's newest participant for the 2026 season. Building the team from nothing has entailed a hectic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the season to be held in the United States, with approximately a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic project in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart from that point and enjoys a knowing grin when thinking about the ride.
“You might get a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in less than three years,’” Chester states. “But then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yeah, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Chester had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious years of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the parent company, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an Formula One team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you don’t get the chance to transform organizational mindset.”
With every day that goes by thoughts are sharper on the looming decisive point in Australia and targets are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team entering the sport is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal noted recently and while the CTO shared this view he believed the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So that we show up and we operate well. We want to show that we’re a proper team executing the correct procedures on the circuit. Once we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on improvement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive
In August they recruited Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a duo distinguished for their invaluable experience in performing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be probably a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to finish last. In my view given this organization, with these individuals, these personnel, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to the front and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with staff now at more than 400 and planned to reach the target of 600 quickly. In addition to their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of completing an headquarters at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are building the plant to build the power unit, scheduled for the 2029 season – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a complex organisation, contrary to the direction in F1 for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred to.
NASA Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” said Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in July. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how tough it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all focusing on different aspects of the mission in a different facilities.
“When you must follow a procedure where an issue arises and they raise it up to their supervisor, that supervisor consults a leader at a different location, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” says Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to really get on with it. Eliminating managerial sign-off for everything is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this agile approach will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a considerable amount on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
