Just over a full year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the official approval as F1's most recent participant for 2026. Constructing the organization from nothing has involved a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the season finale of the season to be held in the America, with approximately three months to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent team in the spring of 2023 not long after it was established, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart ever since and gets a knowing grin when considering the ride.
“There might be five minutes looking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what the team has created in less than three years,’” Chester states. “And then the next minute you think: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical development at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the task of introducing the all-American Cadillac marque, a factory team sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an grand prix team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you don’t get the chance to alter team culture.”
With each day that elapses focus are more focused on the looming critical moment in Australia and expectations are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal commented this year and while Chester shared this view he thought the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we arrive and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender performing the right things on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on forward movement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive
In late summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair notable for their vast knowledge in performing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver reflected the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to finish last. I am confident given this organization, 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 that end hiring has been in top gear, with employees now up to more than 400 and intended to attain the target of 600 members quickly. In addition to their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of building an headquarters at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex structure, at odds with the trend in F1 for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred.
Apollo Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” remarked Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how challenging it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a flat management structure comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of project teams all tackling various components of the project at a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a process where an issue arises and they raise it up to their manager, that supervisor talks to a supervisor somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” notes Nick Chester. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Moving away from managerial sign-off for each action is much smoother and faster.”
The Future
The success of this nimble approach will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a considerable amount on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
