Just over a full year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the green light as the world of Formula One's most recent participant for 2026. Building the organization 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 weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be held in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent project in March 2023 not long after it was established, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core from that point and has a knowing grin when thinking about the journey.
“You might get a brief moment reflecting at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we have built in under three years,’” he notes. “But then the next minute you consider: ‘Well, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has been quite like the task of introducing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a factory team sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an Formula One team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you don’t get the chance to transform team culture.”
With each day that goes by focus are increasingly concentrated on the approaching moment of truth in Melbourne and goals are being handled.
“You have to assume that any incoming team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while Chester echoed this he believed the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he says. “So that we turn up and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation doing the right things on the track. After we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate improvement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Push
In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a pair notable for their priceless expertise in operating at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We face a massive task to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. In my view with this setup, with these individuals, these personnel, there is every reason that we won't be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To that end hiring has been in overdrive, with staff now reaching over 400 and planned to reach the goal of 600 members swiftly. Complementing their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of building an main base at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to manufacture the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organization, different from the direction in F1 for more centralization, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred to.
Apollo Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” said the team principal shortly before the British GP in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how difficult it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a decentralized management comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of specialist groups all focusing on different aspects of the program across a different facilities.
“When you must follow a process where an issue arises and they raise it up to their team leader, that manager communicates with a leader somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” says Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to take charge. Eliminating managerial sign-off for all decisions is much smoother and faster.”
The Future
The success of this agile strategy will be evaluated in the heat of competition next season and there is a considerable amount at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the young American Colton Herta
