Approximately one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the official approval as the world of Formula One's most recent entrant for 2026. Building the team from the ground up has entailed a frenetic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As F1 converges on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be staged in the United States, with approximately 100 days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent team in early 2023 soon after it was created, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core from that point and has a amused expression when thinking about the ride.
“You might get a brief moment reflecting at what you’ve done and think: ‘Wow, what an achievement what the team has created in under three years,’” Chester states. “And then the next minute you think: ‘Well, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Nick Chester had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the owner, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Creating an Formula One team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you rarely get the chance to alter team culture.”
With each day that goes by focus are sharper on the looming decisive point in Melbourne and targets are being managed.
“One must presume that any new team coming in is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon commented recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he believed the squad had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So we arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the track. After we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we will focus on progression from there on.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Push
In late summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair notable for their priceless expertise in performing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he said. “We have a massive task to do, and it’s going to be most likely a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to finish last. I believe with this structure, with this team, these people, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in full swing, with personnel now reaching over 400 and intended to hit the goal of six hundred rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at the UK base, the organization are in the phase of completing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to produce the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – for now they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex structure, contrary to the trend in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Chester alluded.
Apollo Model
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” said the team principal just before the British GP in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how difficult it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. OK, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
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 project teams all tackling different aspects of the program at a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a protocol where a challenge emerges and they report it to their manager, that leader communicates with a manager at a different location, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” notes Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to really get on with it. Eliminating management approval for each action is so much cleaner and quicker.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this flexible methodology will be tested in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a considerable amount riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta
