Approximately twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the official approval as the world of Formula One's newest entry for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from scratch has involved a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 arrives on Vegas this race weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be held in the United States, with around three months to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent team in March 2023 not long after it was established, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core since then and has a amused expression when considering the journey.
“You might get five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Incredible, how impressive what the team has created in less than three years,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Yes, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical development at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Establishing an Formula One team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you don’t get the opportunity to alter organizational mindset.”
With every day that goes by focus are more focused on the looming critical moment in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he believed the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “In order that we arrive and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team doing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we will focus on improvement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Push
In late summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a duo notable for their invaluable experience in operating at the front in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the attitude of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. In my view given this organization, with this group, these people, it's entirely possible we can't manage to get relatively quickly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in top gear, with employees now at more than 400 and scheduled to reach the goal of 600 members swiftly. Complementing their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the process of building an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to produce the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, different from the trend in the sport for more centralization, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred to.
Apollo Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” said the team principal just before the British GP in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we recognize how difficult it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, instead of the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of specialist groups all working on various components of the project across a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they report it to their team leader, that leader talks to a leader in another department, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” notes the CTO. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Moving away from management approval for everything is so much cleaner and quicker.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this nimble approach will be evaluated in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a considerable amount on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
