A little more than one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the go-ahead as F1's most recent entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from nothing has involved a hectic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the final race of the campaign to be held in the US, with around 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 monumental endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the nascent operation in March 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its center ever since and gets a knowing grin when considering the experience.
“You can have five minutes thinking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “But then the very next instant you think: ‘Yes, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical development at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has been quite like the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Establishing an F1 team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you won't have the possibility to change cultural approach.”
With every day that goes by thoughts are sharper on the looming decisive point in Melbourne and expectations are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team coming in is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” the team principal commented this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we arrive and we operate well. We want to show that this is a professional operation doing the proper actions on the race track. After we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate improvement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Push
In August they recruited Checo Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair remarkable for their vast knowledge in operating at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to finish last. I believe with this structure, with this team, these personnel, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with staff now at more than 400 and scheduled to reach the goal of 600 members swiftly. Alongside their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the midst of finishing an HQ at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to produce the 2029 engine, set for the 2029 season – until then they will use Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, different from the trend in F1 for increased consolidation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which the CTO alluded.
Apollo Model
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” said the team principal just before the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all focusing on different aspects of the program in a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they report it to their manager, that manager talks to a manager somewhere else, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” notes Nick Chester. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Eliminating managerial sign-off for everything is so much cleaner and quicker.”
The Future
The success of this agile approach will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a considerable amount riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
