A little more than twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as F1's newest entry for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from the ground up has entailed a hectic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 descends on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac understand the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be staged in the US, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic operation in early 2023 soon after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its core from that point and has a amused expression when reflecting on the experience.
“You might get five minutes looking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you think: ‘Yeah, we still have a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's title-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the challenge of launching the all-American Cadillac brand, a factory team supported by the owner, GM, into Formula One.
“Creating an Formula One team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you won't have the opportunity to change cultural approach.”
With every day that passes thoughts are more focused on the impending moment of truth in Melbourne and targets are being managed.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is going to be last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal stated earlier this year and while the CTO shared this view he believed the team had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we show up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender doing the proper actions on the track. Once we prove that our credentials are solid, then we want to show forward movement after that.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Effort
In August they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a tandem notable for their priceless expertise in performing at the front in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver expressed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. I am confident with this structure, with this group, these personnel, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in overdrive, with personnel now at over 400 and intended to hit the objective of six hundred swiftly. Alongside their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of completing an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are constructing the facility to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, different from the trend in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred to.
NASA Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated the team principal ahead of the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we recognize how challenging it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. OK, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, rather than the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of project teams all focusing on distinct elements of the program at a different facilities.
“When you must follow a process where an issue arises and they escalate it to their supervisor, that leader talks to a leader in another department, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” notes Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable people to take charge. Eliminating hierarchical consent for everything is far more efficient and more rapid.”
The Future
The success of this flexible approach will be tested in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
