Just over twelve months in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the official approval as Formula One’s latest entry for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from nothing has entailed a intense pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be held in the US, with just over a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing 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 task, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent project in the spring of 2023 not long after it was established, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart from that point and enjoys a knowing grin when considering the ride.
“You might get a short period reflecting at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we have built in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “And then the following moment you realize: ‘Well, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical direction at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the challenge of launching the iconic American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the parent company, General Motors, into F1.
“Building an Formula One team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you don’t get the chance to change team culture.”
With every day that elapses focus are sharper on the approaching moment of truth in Australia and targets are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal commented recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he felt the squad had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So that we turn up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender performing the right things on the race track. After we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Push
In August they contracted Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a pair remarkable for their invaluable experience in competing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and we expect almost certainly a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I am confident given this organization, with this team, these people, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in overdrive, with staff now at over 400 and planned to attain the goal of 600 swiftly. Alongside their current base at the UK base, the team are in the process of building an main base at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are developing the center to build the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will use power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex structure, contrary to the movement in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred to.
NASA Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” remarked Lowdon shortly before the British GP in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, rather than the traditional management structure, a decentralized management similar to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all focusing on distinct elements of the mission across a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their manager, that leader talks to a manager in another department, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” says Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to take charge. Avoiding hierarchical consent for all decisions is far more efficient and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this nimble methodology will be proven in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a significant degree riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
