Approximately a full year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the go-ahead as F1's newest entrant for 2026. Building the organization from the ground up has involved a frenetic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As F1 converges on Vegas this race weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be staged in the US, with around three months to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent operation in the spring of 2023 not long after it was established, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and enjoys a wry smile when considering the journey.
“There might be a short period thinking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we have built in under three years,’” he says. “Then the following moment you think: ‘Yes, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's title-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the parent company, General Motors, into F1.
“Creating an F1 team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the chance to change team culture.”
With each passing day that goes by focus are more focused on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and goals are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any incoming team coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the organization had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So we arrive and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender doing the right things on the track. Once we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we want to show forward movement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Push
In late summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a tandem distinguished for their priceless expertise in competing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas echoed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a tough opening, because it is F1. But we’re not there to finish last. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, these people, it's entirely possible we can't manage to progress rapidly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in full swing, with personnel now up to in excess of 400 and scheduled to attain the goal of 600 swiftly. In addition to their current base at Silverstone, the organization are in the midst of building an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to produce the new engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organization, at odds with the direction in the sport for more centralization, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester alluded.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” said the team principal just before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we understand how difficult it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of specialist groups all tackling various components of the program at a different facilities.
“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they report it to their supervisor, that supervisor consults a manager in another department, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” says the CTO. “We give authority to people to handle things directly. Moving away from management approval for each action is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this flexible methodology will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a considerable amount at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
