🔗 Share this article

Just over twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the green light as Formula One’s most recent entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from scratch has required a frenetic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As F1 converges on Vegas this race weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.

The Tight Timeline to Melbourne

At the final race of the campaign to be hosted in the America, with around a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are aware there will not be adequate time.

The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic project in early 2023 shortly after it was created, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core since then and has a knowing grin when thinking about the experience.

“You might get a brief moment thinking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we’ve done in under three years,’” he says. “Then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, we still have a significant amount to do.’”

An Unprecedented Challenge

Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the challenge of launching the iconic American Cadillac name, a factory team sponsored by the parent company, GM, into F1.

“Establishing an grand prix team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you rarely get the opportunity to transform team culture.”

With each passing day that goes by thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the approaching decisive point in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.

“You have to assume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is going to be last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal stated this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he felt the organization had a statement to make as well.

“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So we arrive and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team doing the correct procedures on the circuit. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we will focus on improvement from there on.”

Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push

In the summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a pair remarkable for their vast knowledge in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of determined optimism.

“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We have a massive task to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe with this setup, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to the front and taste victory.”

To realize that ambition recruitment has been in top gear, with personnel now up to more than 400 and planned to reach the objective of 600 members quickly. In addition to their existing facility at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of finishing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are building the center to produce the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will run Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a intricate organization, at odds with the trend in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Chester alluded.

NASA Blueprint

“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” said Lowdon just before the British GP in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”

So they have implemented, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all tackling different aspects of the mission across a different facilities.

“If you have to go through a protocol where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their supervisor, that leader communicates with a manager in another department, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” says Chester. “We give authority to staff to take charge. Eliminating hierarchical consent for everything is far more efficient and faster.”

Upcoming Challenges

The effectiveness of this agile strategy will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is no little amount at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta