Just over one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the green light as F1's newest entry for the 2026 season. Building the team from scratch has entailed a hectic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As the sport converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be held in the America, with around 100 days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic operation in early 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center since then and enjoys a amused expression when reflecting on the ride.
“You might get five minutes looking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what the team has created in under three years,’” he says. “But then the following moment you realize: ‘Yes, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Chester achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the task of launching the all-American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the owner, GM, into F1.
“Creating an grand prix team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the possibility to transform team culture.”
With each passing day that passes thoughts are sharper on the impending decisive point in Australia and expectations are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad joining the grid is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he thought the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So we turn up and we function efficiently. We want to show that we are a serious contender executing the correct procedures on the track. After we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Drive
In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for the 2026 season, a tandem remarkable for their vast knowledge in performing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas echoed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he said. “We have a massive task to do, and we expect almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I am confident with this structure, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with staff now reaching in excess of 400 and scheduled to reach the objective of 600 rapidly. Complementing their present headquarters at the UK base, the organization are in the process of building an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to produce the power unit, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will use power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a intricate structure, at odds with the movement in the sport for more centralization, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester alluded.
Space Mission Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” stated Graeme Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how difficult it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all tackling different aspects of the program across a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a protocol where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a supervisor in another department, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” explains Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable people to take charge. Moving away from management approval for each action is much smoother and more rapid.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this agile approach will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a considerable amount on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
