Approximately a full year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the green light as Formula One’s most recent entry for 2026. Building the squad from nothing has entailed a frenetic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be hosted in the US, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent operation in early 2023 soon after it was established, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center ever since and gets a wry smile when reflecting on the experience.
“You can have a brief moment looking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in less than three years,’” he says. “Then the following moment you think: ‘Yes, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Task
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical development at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a factory team supported by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Establishing an Formula One team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the chance to change cultural approach.”
With every day that passes focus are sharper on the impending moment of truth in Melbourne and targets are being managed.
“You have to assume that any new team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Chester echoed this he felt the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So that we arrive and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender performing the right things on the circuit. When we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we want to show progression subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Effort
In the summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their invaluable experience in competing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the mood of combative optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a difficult start, because it is F1. But we’re not there to finish last. In my view with this setup, with this group, these personnel, there is every reason that we won't be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with staff now reaching over 400 and intended to hit the objective of six hundred quickly. Alongside their current base at Silverstone, the squad are in the midst of finishing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are developing the center to build the power unit, set for 2029 – until then they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, contrary to the direction in F1 for more centralization, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred.
Apollo Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” stated the team principal just before the British GP in July. “We are pragmatic, we understand 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 embraced, instead of the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a range of project teams all tackling distinct elements of the project in a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a process where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that leader talks to a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” explains Chester. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Eliminating managerial sign-off for each action is far more efficient and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this agile strategy will be proven in the pressure of racing next season and there is a considerable amount on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
