A little more than a full year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's latest entrant for 2026. Constructing the squad from scratch has required a frenetic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on Vegas this weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the season finale of the campaign to be hosted in the United States, with approximately three months to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic operation in March 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart ever since and has a wry smile when reflecting on the ride.
“There might be a short period looking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what the team has created in less than three years,’” Chester states. “But then the very next instant you think: ‘Well, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
The CTO had success at Renault in Alonso's title-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the challenge of launching the iconic American Cadillac marque, a factory team backed by the owner, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Creating an F1 team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you won't have the chance to transform organizational mindset.”
With every day that goes by focus are increasingly concentrated on the looming critical moment in the Australian GP and expectations are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team coming in is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted recently and while Chester shared this view he believed the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we turn up and we operate well. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation doing the right things on the race track. After we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Push
In August they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their priceless expertise in operating at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Bottas echoed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We face a massive task to do, and it’s going to be most likely a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. In my view given this organization, with this group, this staff, it's entirely possible we can't manage to advance swiftly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with personnel now reaching more than 400 and planned to reach the objective of 600 members rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at Silverstone, the team are in the phase of completing an main base at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are constructing the plant to produce the new engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the movement in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester alluded.
NASA Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” remarked Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in July. “We are pragmatic, we know how tough it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all tackling different aspects of the project in a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a process where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that manager communicates with a manager somewhere else, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” explains the CTO. “We give authority to people to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for each action is far more efficient and faster.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this flexible strategy will be evaluated in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is no little amount on the line for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
