Just over a full year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last granted the green light as the world of Formula One's newest entry for 2026. Building the team from nothing has entailed a intense operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As the sport descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the season to be staged in the United States, with approximately 100 days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed team in March 2023 shortly after it was established, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart since then and gets a amused expression when reflecting on the ride.
“You can have a short period reflecting at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Amazing, how impressive what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you consider: ‘Yeah, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Task
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has been quite like the task of bringing the all-American Cadillac marque, a factory team sponsored by the parent company, GM, into Formula One.
“Creating an F1 team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you don’t get the chance to alter team culture.”
With each day that passes minds are more focused on the looming critical moment in Melbourne and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team entering the sport is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he believed the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So we show up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team performing the right things on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we want to show forward movement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Drive
In August they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a pair remarkable for their vast knowledge in performing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to finish last. I am confident given this organization, with this team, these people, there is every reason that we can't manage to get relatively quickly to the front and achieve good results.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in top gear, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and intended to attain the goal of 600 members rapidly. Alongside their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the phase of finishing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to produce the new engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – for now they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organisation, contrary to the movement in the sport for increased consolidation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
Apollo Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” stated Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how difficult it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of project teams all focusing on different aspects of the mission across a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a procedure where an issue arises and they escalate it to their team leader, that leader consults a manager somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” explains Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to take charge. Avoiding managerial sign-off for each action is much smoother and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is no little amount at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
