A little more than one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the official approval as Formula One’s most recent participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from nothing has entailed a hectic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be staged in the United States, with around three months to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic team in the spring of 2023 soon after it was established, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core ever since and has a amused expression when considering the journey.
“There might be five minutes looking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Wow, what an achievement what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he says. “Then the following moment you consider: ‘Yeah, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Nick Chester had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical development at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the mission of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an grand prix team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you rarely get the chance to alter cultural approach.”
With each day that passes thoughts are more focused on the approaching decisive point in Australia and targets are being managed.
“You have to assume that any new team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while Chester echoed this he felt the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So that we show up and we function efficiently. We want to show that we are a serious contender performing the proper actions on the track. When we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate progression after that.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push
In the summer they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo distinguished for their vast knowledge in performing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver echoed the mood of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We have a massive task to do, and it will likely be probably a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. I am confident with this setup, with this team, this staff, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To that end recruitment has been in top gear, with staff now up to in excess of 400 and planned to hit the objective of 600 swiftly. Complementing their present headquarters at the UK base, the organization are in the midst of building an headquarters at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are building the center to produce the power unit, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a complex organization, at odds with the trend in F1 for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester alluded.
Apollo Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we understand how challenging it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure akin to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all working on distinct elements of the mission at a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where an issue arises and they raise it up to their supervisor, that leader communicates with a supervisor at a different location, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” explains Chester. “So we empower team members to take charge. Eliminating managerial sign-off for everything is far more efficient and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this flexible strategy will be proven in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is no little amount riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
