Just over twelve months previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the official approval as F1's most recent participant for 2026. Constructing the squad from nothing has involved a frenetic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As Formula One arrives on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac understand the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be staged in the United States, with around 100 days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed project in the spring of 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its core since then and has a wry smile when considering the ride.
“There might be five minutes reflecting at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “And then the following moment you consider: ‘Yeah, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the task of launching the all-American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the parent company, GM, into Formula One.
“Creating an F1 team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you won't have the opportunity to transform team culture.”
With every day that passes focus are sharper on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “In order that we show up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender performing the proper actions on the track. When we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Push
In the summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their priceless expertise in performing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the mood of combative optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and we expect almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to finish last. I believe with this structure, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in top gear, with personnel now up to in excess of 400 and planned to hit the target of 600 members quickly. Alongside their present headquarters at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of completing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are developing the center to build the 2029 engine, planned for the 2029 season – for now they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex organization, contrary to the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred.
NASA Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” stated Graeme Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how difficult it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, rather than the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of project teams all working on different aspects of the program across a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where an issue arises and they raise it up to their manager, that leader consults a supervisor in another department, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” notes Chester. “So we empower team members to handle things directly. Eliminating hierarchical consent for all decisions is so much cleaner and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this agile methodology will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a significant degree at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
