A little more than one year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the green light as the world of Formula One's most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from nothing has required a intense operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the championship to be held in the US, with just over 100 days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed project in the spring of 2023 soon after it was established, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core since then and enjoys a wry smile when reflecting on the ride.
“There might be a short period thinking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in under three years,’” he says. “But then the next minute you consider: ‘Yeah, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac name, a factory team supported by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Creating an grand prix team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you rarely get the possibility to alter cultural approach.”
With every day that passes thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” the team principal commented earlier this year and while the CTO echoed this he felt the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So that we arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that we’re a proper team performing the correct procedures on the track. After we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Effort
In the summer they signed Checo Pérez and Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a pair distinguished for their vast knowledge in operating at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas expressed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I am confident with this structure, with this team, these people, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to the front and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with personnel now at more than 400 and scheduled to reach the goal of 600 swiftly. Complementing their current base at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of completing an headquarters at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are developing the center to manufacture the 2029 engine, planned for the 2029 season – for now they will use Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a complex structure, at odds with the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO alluded.
Apollo Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said the team principal ahead of the Silverstone race in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how tough it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of specialist groups all focusing on various components of the mission across a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they report it to their supervisor, that supervisor communicates with a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” says Chester. “We give authority to people to handle things directly. Moving away from hierarchical consent for everything is much smoother and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this flexible approach will be evaluated in the pressure of racing next season and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
