A little more than twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's newest participant for 2026. Constructing the squad from the ground up has involved a hectic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As F1 descends on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be hosted in the United States, with approximately 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are cognizant there will not be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic team in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center since then and has a wry smile when considering the experience.
“There might be a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we’ve done in under three years,’” he notes. “But then the following moment you consider: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the challenge of launching the iconic American Cadillac brand, a works entry supported by the parent company, General Motors, into F1.
“Establishing an F1 team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you don’t get the possibility to alter team culture.”
With each passing day that elapses minds are sharper on the looming moment of truth in Australia and targets are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team coming in is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal noted this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he thought the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So we show up and we operate well. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender performing the correct procedures on the circuit. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate progression after that.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Push
In the summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their priceless expertise in competing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. In my view with this structure, with this group, this staff, there is every reason that we won't be able to advance swiftly to the front and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in top gear, with staff now up to over 400 and planned to reach the target of 600 members swiftly. In addition to their current base at Silverstone, the squad are in the process of finishing an main base at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to produce the power unit, set for the 2029 season – until then they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organisation, contrary to the trend in F1 for more centralization, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester alluded.
Apollo Model
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said the team principal shortly before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, instead of the traditional management structure, a decentralized management comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all working on various components of the project across a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a protocol where someone has a problem and they report it to their supervisor, that manager consults a manager in another department, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” explains Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable people to handle things directly. Moving away from management approval for everything is much smoother and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this nimble approach will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a considerable amount on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
