Just over a full year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as Formula One’s newest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from nothing has required a intense operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the season finale of the campaign to be held in the US, with around 100 days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent project in the spring of 2023 soon after it was established, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart since then and gets a wry smile when thinking about the ride.
“There might be a short period thinking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in less than three years,’” he notes. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Well, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Chester had success at Renault in Alonso's title-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the mission of bringing the all-American Cadillac brand, a works entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an Formula One team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you won't have the opportunity to transform cultural approach.”
With each day that elapses thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the impending critical moment in Australia and targets are being handled.
“You have to assume that any incoming team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon stated recently and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that we are a serious contender doing the correct procedures on the race track. After we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate progression from there on.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Push
In August they recruited Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair notable for their vast knowledge in performing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the attitude of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a difficult start, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I am confident with this structure, with this team, these personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to the front and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in full swing, with personnel now reaching more than 400 and planned to hit the target of 600 members quickly. Alongside their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of completing an main base at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are constructing the plant to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex organisation, at odds with the direction in F1 for increased consolidation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester alluded.
NASA Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” said the team principal shortly before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how tough it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. OK, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, rather than the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all working on various components of the project across a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a procedure where an issue arises and they raise it up to their manager, that supervisor consults a supervisor at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” notes Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to take charge. Avoiding management approval for all decisions is so much cleaner and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this agile strategy will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is no little amount riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta
