Just over one year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately given the official approval as Formula One’s latest entrant for the 2026 season. Building the team from nothing has involved a frenetic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As F1 descends on Vegas this race weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the campaign to be held in the America, with approximately three months to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent operation in the spring of 2023 soon after it was established, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its core from that point and has a amused expression when considering the ride.
“You can have a short period reflecting at what you’ve done and think: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “But then the following moment you consider: ‘Yes, we still have a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical development at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has quite compared with the mission of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a factory team backed by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Building an F1 team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you won't have the chance to alter organizational mindset.”
With every day that goes by minds are sharper on the approaching decisive point in Australia and goals are being set realistically.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal noted this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he believed the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So that we turn up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender performing the right things on the track. After we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we want to show progression subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Push
In the summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their invaluable experience in competing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he said. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. I believe with this structure, with this group, these people, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To that end recruitment has been in full swing, with employees now up to over 400 and scheduled to attain the target of 600 members swiftly. In addition to their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the process of completing an headquarters at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the center to manufacture the new engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – until then they will use Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a complex structure, different from the movement in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester alluded.
Apollo Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” stated the team principal just before the Silverstone race in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how tough it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, rather than the traditional management structure, a decentralized management comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all focusing on various components of the project at a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a process where an issue arises and they escalate it to their team leader, that supervisor communicates with a manager at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” explains Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to take charge. Eliminating managerial sign-off for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this flexible approach will be evaluated in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a significant degree at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
