A little more than twelve months previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the go-ahead as F1's latest entrant for 2026. Constructing the team from the ground up has entailed a frenetic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be held in the US, with approximately 100 days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed project in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart from that point and has a knowing grin when reflecting on the journey.
“There might be a short period reflecting at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he says. “And then the very next instant you think: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the challenge of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a factory team supported by the owner, GM, into Formula One.
“Creating an F1 team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the possibility to transform team culture.”
With each passing day that passes minds are more focused on the approaching critical moment in Australia and targets are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad coming in is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” the team principal noted recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he felt the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we turn up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation executing the right things on the track. After we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we want to show forward movement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive
In late summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a pair notable for their vast knowledge in competing at the front in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver reflected the mood of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. In my view given this organization, with this group, this staff, there is every reason that we won't be able to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in full swing, with personnel now reaching more than 400 and scheduled to attain the goal of 600 rapidly. Complementing their present headquarters at Silverstone, the squad are in the midst of finishing an HQ at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to produce the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex structure, at odds with the trend in F1 for increased consolidation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester alluded.
Apollo Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” stated the team principal shortly before the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how tough it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a decentralized management comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all tackling different aspects of the project across a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their supervisor, that manager consults a leader in another department, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” says Chester. “Therefore we enable people to handle things directly. Moving away from managerial sign-off for everything is much smoother and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this agile strategy will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta
