Just over twelve months in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the go-ahead as F1's latest entry for 2026. Establishing the team from the ground up has required a frenetic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As F1 converges on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac understand the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the last event of the season to be hosted in the US, with approximately three months to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic team in March 2023 not long after it was formed, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its center from that point and enjoys a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“You might get five minutes thinking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we have built in less than three years,’” he says. “But then the very next instant you realize: ‘Well, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's title-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical development at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has been quite like the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an Formula One team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you rarely get the opportunity to change organizational mindset.”
With each day that passes focus are more focused on the approaching decisive point in Australia and goals are being handled.
“You have to assume that any incoming team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal noted recently and while Chester shared this view he believed the organization had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “In order that we show up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation doing the correct procedures on the track. Once we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show forward movement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Effort
In late summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a tandem distinguished for their vast knowledge in operating at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver reflected the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and we expect almost certainly a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to stay at the back. In my view given this organization, with this group, these people, there is every reason that we can't manage to advance swiftly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in top gear, with staff now reaching in excess of 400 and intended to attain the goal of six hundred rapidly. Alongside their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the midst of finishing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will use Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, contrary to the trend in the sport for increased consolidation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred to.
NASA Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” remarked the team principal ahead of the British GP in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we recognize how tough it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all tackling various components of the project at a different facilities.
“When you must follow a protocol where an issue arises and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor communicates with a manager in another department, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” explains Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to handle things directly. Eliminating hierarchical consent for each action is far more efficient and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is no little amount at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
