A little more than a full year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the green light as F1's latest entry for the 2026 season. Building the team from the ground up has involved a intense pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be hosted in the United States, with just over three months to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic team in March 2023 shortly after it was created, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core since then and gets a wry smile when thinking about the journey.
“There might be five minutes thinking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what the team has created in less than three years,’” he says. “But then the following moment you think: ‘Well, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
The CTO had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious years of the mid-2000s and was in command 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 supported by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an Formula One team from scratch, 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 possibility to change organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that passes focus are sharper on the looming moment of truth in Melbourne and targets are being handled.
“You have to assume that any incoming team coming in is going to be last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon stated recently and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the team had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that we’re a proper team doing the correct procedures on the race track. After we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on improvement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Effort
In August they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo notable for their priceless expertise in operating at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas echoed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it will likely be most likely a tough opening, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. In my view with this structure, with these individuals, this staff, there’s no reason why we can't manage to advance swiftly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in overdrive, with personnel now up to more than 400 and planned to reach the target of 600 members swiftly. In addition to their existing facility at the UK base, the organization are in the phase of building an HQ at Fishers in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the new engine, set for the 2029 season – for now they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex structure, contrary to the direction in the sport for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester alluded.
Apollo Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” said the team principal shortly before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we recognize how challenging it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. OK, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all focusing on various components of the program across a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a process where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their manager, that supervisor communicates with a manager in another department, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” notes Nick Chester. “We give authority to people to handle things directly. Avoiding managerial sign-off for all decisions is far more efficient and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this agile approach will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a considerable amount riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
