Approximately one year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the green light as the world of Formula One's latest entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from the ground up has required a hectic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As F1 descends on Vegas this weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be hosted in the United States, with just over a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the first 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 sisyphean endeavor, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent operation in March 2023 soon after it was created, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center ever since and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the ride.
“You might get a brief moment looking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “Then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yeah, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's title-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the mission of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Establishing an F1 team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you rarely get the possibility to alter organizational mindset.”
With each day that elapses minds are more focused on the approaching moment of truth in Australia and expectations are being handled.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad coming in is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal stated this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we should be there,” he says. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team executing the proper actions on the race track. After we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Drive
In August they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair remarkable for their vast knowledge in competing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas reflected the mood of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to finish last. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, these personnel, there’s no reason why we won't be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with staff now reaching in excess of 400 and scheduled to attain the target of 600 swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at Silverstone, the squad are in the midst of completing an main base at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are developing the plant to manufacture the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organisation, different from the trend in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Chester referred to.
NASA Blueprint
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management akin to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all focusing on distinct elements of the program across a different facilities.
“When you must follow a procedure where an issue arises and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a supervisor somewhere else, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” notes Nick Chester. “We give authority to people to really get on with it. Eliminating management approval for everything is so much cleaner and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this agile approach will be tested in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a significant degree riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
