A little more than twelve months previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the go-ahead as F1's most recent participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from scratch has involved a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be hosted 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 come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are aware there will not be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic team in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart ever since and enjoys a knowing grin when reflecting on the experience.
“There might be five minutes thinking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in under three years,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Yes, there is still a great deal 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 direction at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the corporate entity, GM, into F1.
“Building an F1 team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you don’t get the possibility to transform organizational mindset.”
With every day that goes by minds are more focused on the approaching moment of truth in the Australian GP and expectations are being managed.
“You have to assume that any incoming team coming in is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted earlier this year and while the CTO shared this view he thought the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we show up and we operate well. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team doing the right things on the race track. After we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we want to show forward movement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Push
In late summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a duo remarkable for their vast knowledge in competing at the front in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and we expect most likely a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to finish last. I am confident with this setup, with this team, these people, it's entirely possible we can't manage to progress rapidly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with personnel now reaching more than 400 and scheduled to hit the goal of six hundred swiftly. In addition to their existing facility at the UK base, the organization are in the midst of building an main base at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are developing the center to build the new engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – until then they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a intricate structure, contrary to the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Chester referred.
Apollo Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” said the team principal shortly before the British GP in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, instead of the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of project teams all tackling different aspects of the project at a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they report it to their team leader, that manager talks to a leader at a different location, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” notes Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to take charge. Moving away from managerial sign-off for everything is much smoother and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this flexible approach will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a considerable amount riding on this for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
