A little more than a full year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the green light as F1's latest participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from the ground up has required a hectic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be held in the US, with around 100 days to go before they take to the track 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 sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the nascent team in early 2023 soon after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart since then and enjoys a knowing grin when considering the ride.
“You might get a brief moment thinking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in under three years,’” Chester states. “But then the next minute you realize: ‘Yes, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical development at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the mission of launching the all-American Cadillac brand, a factory team supported by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an grand prix team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you don’t get the chance to transform cultural approach.”
With each passing day that passes focus are sharper on the looming decisive point in Melbourne and targets are being handled.
“You have to assume that any new team entering the sport is going to be last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he thought the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So we arrive and we perform competently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the track. When we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we will focus on forward movement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Effort
In late summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their pilots for the 2026 season, a duo distinguished for their invaluable experience in operating at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas expressed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be probably a tough opening, because it is F1. But we’re not there to stay at the back. In my view with this structure, with this team, these people, there is every reason that we can't manage to advance swiftly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with employees now reaching in excess of 400 and intended to attain the target of 600 members swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the phase of completing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to produce the power unit, scheduled for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organization, at odds with the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester alluded.
Apollo Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” remarked the team principal ahead of the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how challenging it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a flat management structure akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all working on various components of the program at a different facilities.
“When you must follow a process where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their manager, that leader consults a leader somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” says Chester. “So we empower staff to handle things directly. Moving away from management approval for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this nimble approach will be tested in the heat of competition next season 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
