Approximately a full year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the official approval as Formula One’s newest entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from scratch has entailed a frenetic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As the sport descends on Las Vegas this weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the championship to be held in the America, with around 100 days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic project in early 2023 not long after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart from that point and gets a amused expression when thinking about the ride.
“You can have a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “And then the next minute you consider: ‘Yes, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a factory team supported by the corporate entity, GM, into F1.
“Building an grand prix team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you won't have the opportunity to change cultural approach.”
With every day that passes minds are increasingly concentrated on the impending decisive point in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon stated this year and while the CTO shared this view he believed the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So we show up and we operate well. We want to show that this is a professional operation performing the right things on the circuit. Once we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we want to show forward movement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Push
In August they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their invaluable experience in operating at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of determined optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We face a massive task to do, and it’s going to be probably a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to finish last. In my view with this structure, with this group, these personnel, it's entirely possible we won't be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To that end hiring has been in full swing, with staff now up to over 400 and intended to reach the objective of six hundred swiftly. In addition to their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the midst of completing an HQ at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to build the new engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex structure, contrary to the trend 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,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how difficult it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, instead of the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of project teams all working on distinct elements of the project at a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a process where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their supervisor, that manager talks to a leader in another department, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” notes Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable people to handle things directly. Avoiding management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this agile strategy will be evaluated in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a significant degree riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
