Just over a full year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the official approval as F1's most recent participant for 2026. Establishing the team from nothing has entailed a frenetic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac know the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be staged in the US, with around three months to go before they make their debut for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic project in early 2023 shortly after it was established, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart from that point and gets a wry smile when considering the journey.
“You can have a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Incredible, how impressive what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the very next instant you consider: ‘Well, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the challenge of launching the all-American Cadillac marque, a factory team backed by the parent company, GM, into F1.
“Building an grand prix team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you won't have the chance to alter cultural approach.”
With each passing day that passes thoughts are more focused on the approaching critical moment in the Australian GP and expectations are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal commented recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he believed the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So we turn up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation doing the proper actions on the circuit. After we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we want to show forward movement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Drive
In the summer they signed Checo Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in operating at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a difficult start, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to finish last. I believe with this setup, with this group, these personnel, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in overdrive, with employees now reaching over 400 and intended to hit the goal of 600 swiftly. Alongside their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the process of completing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to manufacture the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will use power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organization, contrary to the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which the CTO alluded.
Space Mission Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” said the team principal ahead of the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we know how difficult it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all focusing on distinct elements of the program across a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a procedure where an issue arises and they report it to their team leader, that supervisor communicates with a leader somewhere else, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” explains Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to take charge. Moving away from management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this flexible strategy will be tested in the heat of competition next season and there is no little amount at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have taken on as their development driver the young American Colton Herta
