Just over a full year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the official approval as Formula One’s latest participant for 2026. Establishing the team from the ground up has entailed a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 arrives on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be hosted in the United States, with around 100 days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are cognizant there will not be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in early 2023 soon after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center from that point and gets a wry smile when considering the experience.
“There might be a short period reflecting at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Wow, how impressive what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he says. “Then the next minute you realize: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Chester had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical direction at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the mission of introducing the iconic American Cadillac name, a works entry sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an F1 team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you won't have the opportunity to change team culture.”
With each day that elapses thoughts are sharper on the looming moment of truth in Australia and expectations are being managed.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” the team principal stated recently and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So we turn up and we operate well. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender doing the correct procedures on the circuit. After we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate improvement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Drive
In the summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a tandem notable for their invaluable experience in operating at the front in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it’s going to be most likely a tough opening, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I believe given this organization, with this team, these personnel, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in top gear, with employees now at more than 400 and intended to attain the objective of 600 members quickly. In addition to their current base at Silverstone, the squad are in the process of building an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to manufacture the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organisation, contrary to the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred.
Apollo Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” stated Lowdon shortly before the British GP in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how tough it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a decentralized management similar to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all working on various components of the project in a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a procedure where an issue arises and they raise it up to their supervisor, that supervisor consults a supervisor in another department, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” explains Nick Chester. “We give authority to team members to take charge. Eliminating management approval for each action is far more efficient and quicker.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this nimble methodology will be tested in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a significant degree riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
