Just over a full year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's latest entry for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from scratch has involved a frenetic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the championship to be held in the United States, with just over 100 days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed project in early 2023 shortly after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its core since then and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the experience.
“There might be a short period reflecting at what you’ve done and say: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we have built in under three years,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you think: ‘Yeah, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the all-American Cadillac name, a factory team sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Establishing an grand prix team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you won't have the opportunity to change organizational mindset.”
With each day that passes thoughts are more focused on the approaching decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad joining the grid is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Chester echoed this he believed the team had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he says. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team performing the right things on the circuit. When we prove that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on progression subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Push
In the summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo remarkable for their invaluable experience in competing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver expressed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. In my view with this structure, with this team, these personnel, it's entirely possible we won't be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in full swing, with staff now reaching over 400 and planned to attain the objective of six hundred swiftly. Alongside their current base at the UK base, the organization are in the process of completing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to produce the new engine, set for the 2029 season – until then they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the direction in F1 for more centralization, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester alluded.
Apollo Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” remarked the team principal just before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how tough it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, rather than the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure akin to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of project teams all working on various components of the project in a different facilities.
“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they report it to their manager, that leader communicates with a supervisor somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “So we empower people to really get on with it. Eliminating management approval for each action is much smoother and quicker.”
The Future
The efficacy of this flexible approach will be tested in the pressure of racing next season and there is no little amount riding on this for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
