Approximately a full year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the official approval as F1's newest entry for 2026. Establishing the organization from nothing has entailed a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 converges on Las Vegas this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be held in the United States, with approximately three months to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic team in March 2023 shortly after it was created, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center since then and has a knowing grin when thinking about the ride.
“You can have a short period thinking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Well, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the challenge of introducing the all-American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Establishing an Formula One team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you rarely get the possibility to transform organizational mindset.”
With every day that goes by minds are more focused on the approaching critical moment in the Australian GP and expectations are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon stated recently and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So that we arrive and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team performing the right things on the race track. After we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on progression from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive
In the summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their priceless expertise in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to finish last. I am confident with this setup, with these individuals, these people, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to the front and achieve good results.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with personnel now at over 400 and intended to hit the target of six hundred rapidly. In addition to their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the process of finishing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to build the 2029 engine, planned for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a complex structure, different from the direction in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred to.
NASA Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” said the team principal just before the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how difficult it is. The schedules, 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 adopted, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all working on various components of the mission across a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a protocol where an issue arises and they escalate it to their manager, that supervisor consults a supervisor in another department, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” explains Chester. “We give authority to staff to take charge. Moving away from managerial sign-off for everything is much smoother and quicker.”
The Future
The success of this agile approach will be tested in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a significant degree riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
