Approximately one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the green light as Formula One’s newest entry for 2026. Establishing the squad from nothing has involved a intense work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As Formula One converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be staged in the America, with just over 100 days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed project in early 2023 soon after it was established, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart since then and has a wry smile when thinking about the journey.
“There might be five minutes reflecting at what you’ve done and go: ‘Wow, how impressive what we have built in under three years,’” he says. “But then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in control of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the challenge of introducing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the owner, GM, into F1.
“Building an F1 team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you don’t get the possibility to transform team culture.”
With each day that elapses thoughts are more focused on the impending decisive point in Australia and expectations are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad joining the grid 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 shared this view he thought the squad had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So that we turn up and we operate well. We want to show that this is a professional operation executing the proper actions on the circuit. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we will focus on progression from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Push
In late summer they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a tandem notable for their invaluable experience in competing at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Bottas expressed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We face a massive task to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I am confident with this structure, with this group, this staff, there is every reason that we can't manage to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with personnel now at over 400 and planned to reach the goal of 600 quickly. Complementing their existing facility at the UK base, the team are in the phase of finishing an headquarters at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to produce the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the trend in F1 for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester alluded.
Apollo Model
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how tough it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all focusing on different aspects of the project across a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a process where someone has a problem and they report it to their supervisor, that leader talks to a supervisor in another department, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says Nick Chester. “So we empower people to handle things directly. Avoiding managerial sign-off for each action is far more efficient and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this flexible strategy will be proven in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a considerable amount on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
