Just over one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the official approval as F1's latest entry for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from scratch has entailed a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 descends on Vegas this race weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the final race of the campaign to be hosted in the America, with around a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed project in the spring of 2023 soon after it was created, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center from that point and has a knowing grin when reflecting on the experience.
“You might get a brief moment looking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we have built in under three years,’” he says. “But then the next minute you consider: ‘Yes, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious years of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has quite compared with the mission of introducing the iconic American Cadillac name, a factory team supported by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Establishing an F1 team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you won't have the possibility to change cultural approach.”
With each passing day that goes by minds are increasingly concentrated on the approaching moment of truth in the Australian GP and targets are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad coming in is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon commented recently and while Nick Chester echoed this he felt the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “In order that we show up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation doing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate progression subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Push
In the summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem notable for their vast knowledge in operating at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he said. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a tough opening, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I am confident with this structure, with this group, these personnel, there’s no reason why we can't manage to get relatively quickly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To that end recruitment has been in top gear, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and intended to attain the target of six hundred quickly. Complementing their current base at Silverstone, the team are in the midst of finishing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex organisation, contrary to the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Chester referred.
Apollo Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” said the team principal ahead of the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how difficult it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, instead of the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of project teams all focusing on various components of the project across a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their team leader, that leader consults a leader at a different location, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” notes Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to handle things directly. Eliminating hierarchical consent for everything is much smoother and faster.”
The Future
The success of this agile methodology will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is no little amount at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
