Just over one year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately given the green light as the world of Formula One's most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from scratch has involved a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One descends on Vegas this weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be hosted in the United States, with approximately a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent team in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was created, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core ever since and gets a wry smile when thinking about the journey.
“You can have five minutes reflecting at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in under three years,’” Chester states. “Then the next minute you consider: ‘Well, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has been quite like the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the owner, GM, into F1.
“Creating an grand prix team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you don’t get the chance to change organizational mindset.”
With each day that goes by focus are increasingly concentrated on the looming moment of truth in Australia and goals are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” the team principal noted recently and while Nick Chester echoed this he believed the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “In order that we turn up and we operate well. We want to show that this is a professional operation doing the right things on the race track. Once we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Push
In the summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a pair distinguished for their invaluable experience in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver echoed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We face a massive task to do, and we expect most likely a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I am confident with this structure, with this group, these personnel, it's entirely possible we can't manage to advance swiftly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in full swing, with staff now at in excess of 400 and intended to reach the objective of 600 members rapidly. Complementing their current base at the UK base, the organization are in the phase of completing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the center to produce the new engine, planned for the 2029 season – until then they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organization, at odds with the movement in F1 for increased consolidation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred.
Apollo Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” said Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we understand how challenging it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a flat management structure akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of project teams all working on different aspects of the project in a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a process where someone has a problem and they report it to their manager, that manager consults a leader at a different location, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” explains Chester. “So we empower people to really get on with it. Eliminating hierarchical consent for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this nimble approach will be tested in the pressure of racing next season and there is no little amount on the line for the sport, too. Cadillac have taken on as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
