A little more than a full year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's most recent entry for 2026. Establishing the team from nothing has required a hectic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As Formula One arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the season to be staged in the United States, with around 100 days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent team in the spring of 2023 not long after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core from that point and has a wry smile when thinking about the experience.
“You can have a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we have built in under three years,’” he notes. “Then the next minute you consider: ‘Yes, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a works entry sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Creating an F1 team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you won't have the possibility to change cultural approach.”
With every day that goes by thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the looming decisive point in Australia and targets are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team coming in is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal stated recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the organization had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So we turn up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender doing the right things on the race track. Once we prove that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on improvement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive
In the summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a tandem notable for their priceless expertise in operating at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the mood of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he said. “We have a massive task to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we’re not there to finish last. I am confident with this setup, with these individuals, these people, it's entirely possible we can't manage to advance swiftly to the front and achieve good results.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with employees now at over 400 and scheduled to attain the target of 600 rapidly. In addition to their current base at Silverstone, the organization are in the midst of building an headquarters at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are developing the plant to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organization, at odds with the movement in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred to.
Apollo Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” said the team principal shortly before the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a decentralized management comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the mission in a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a process where an issue arises and they report it to their supervisor, that leader communicates with a leader somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” explains Chester. “Therefore we enable people to really get on with it. Moving away from hierarchical consent for everything is so much cleaner and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this nimble approach will be proven in the pressure of racing next season and there is a considerable amount riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
