A little more than twelve months in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the green light as F1's newest entrant for the 2026 season. Building the organization from nothing has involved a frenetic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As Formula One descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be held in the United States, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic operation in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart since then and enjoys a wry smile when reflecting on the ride.
“There might be a brief moment thinking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Wow, how impressive what we’ve done in under three years,’” Chester states. “But then the next minute you think: ‘Yeah, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical development at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the task of bringing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an Formula One team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you don’t get the possibility to transform team culture.”
With each passing day that elapses thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the looming moment of truth in Australia and targets are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented recently and while Chester echoed this he felt the team had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So we show up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender performing the proper actions on the track. After we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive
In late summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair notable for their invaluable experience in operating at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Bottas expressed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a massive task to do, and it’s going to be probably a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. In my view with this structure, with this group, these personnel, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in overdrive, with staff now up to more than 400 and scheduled to hit the goal of 600 swiftly. Alongside their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the midst of finishing an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to produce the power unit, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organization, contrary to the direction in F1 for increased consolidation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester alluded.
Apollo Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said the team principal shortly before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how difficult it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all working on different aspects of the mission in a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a process where an issue arises and they escalate it to their manager, that supervisor consults a leader at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” says Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to take charge. Avoiding management approval for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this flexible methodology will be proven in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is no little amount riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
