Just over twelve months ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as Formula One’s most recent participant for 2026. Constructing the team from the ground up has required a frenetic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the final race of the campaign to be staged in the America, with just over 100 days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic project in March 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center from that point and has a knowing grin when considering the journey.
“You might get a short period looking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “But then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's victorious campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical direction at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Creating an Formula One team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you rarely get the opportunity to change team culture.”
With each day that goes by focus are more focused on the looming critical moment in Australia and expectations are being handled.
“One must presume that any new team coming in is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal commented recently and while Chester shared this view he believed the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on improvement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Effort
In August they contracted Sergio Perez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair notable for their vast knowledge in competing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Bottas echoed the mood of determined optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. In my view with this setup, with this group, these personnel, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To that end recruitment has been in overdrive, with employees now at in excess of 400 and planned to hit the target of 600 members quickly. Alongside their existing facility at the UK base, the team are in the process of finishing an main base at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to produce the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – until then they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex structure, different from the direction in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred to.
Apollo Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we know how tough it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of specialist groups all focusing on different aspects of the project across a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a protocol where an issue arises and they escalate it to their team leader, that supervisor consults a manager at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” explains Chester. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Avoiding management approval for each action is so much cleaner and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be evaluated in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is no little amount on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
