Approximately one year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the official approval as F1's newest entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from nothing has required a frenetic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One descends on Las Vegas this weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the season to be held in the America, with just over 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic project in March 2023 shortly after it was established, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its center since then and enjoys a amused expression when reflecting on the experience.
“There might be five minutes reflecting at what you’ve done and think: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he says. “And then the very next instant you think: ‘Well, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has truly matched the challenge of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a works entry sponsored by the parent company, GM, into F1.
“Building an grand prix team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you rarely get the chance to transform organizational mindset.”
With each day that passes minds are increasingly concentrated on the looming critical moment in the Australian GP and goals are being handled.
“You have to assume that any incoming team entering the sport is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon stated this year and while the CTO echoed this he believed the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So that we arrive and we operate well. We want to show that we are a serious contender performing the correct procedures on the race track. After we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate improvement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Push
In late summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair notable for their vast knowledge in competing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver expressed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be probably a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. In my view given this organization, with this group, these people, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with employees now reaching over 400 and intended to attain the target of 600 swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the phase of building an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the center to produce the new engine, set for 2029 – for now they will use power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, different from the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which the CTO alluded.
Apollo Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” said the team principal just before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how challenging it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a decentralized management comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all focusing on various components of the mission at a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they report it to their team leader, that leader communicates with a leader at a different location, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” explains Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to take charge. Moving away from management approval for all decisions is much smoother and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this flexible methodology will be tested in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a considerable amount on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
