Just over one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the official approval as Formula One’s most recent participant for 2026. Constructing the organization from nothing has required a frenetic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the championship to be hosted in the US, with just over 100 days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are aware there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed team in the spring of 2023 soon after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core since then and gets a knowing grin when considering the journey.
“You might get five minutes thinking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “But then the very next instant you think: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Task
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical development at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Creating an grand prix team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you won't have the opportunity to change team culture.”
With each passing day that goes by focus are sharper on the approaching critical moment in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.
“You have to assume that any new team joining the grid is going to be last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” the team principal commented earlier this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the team had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we show up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation executing the correct procedures on the race track. After we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate improvement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Push
In late summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem notable for their vast knowledge in operating at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. In my view with this setup, with this group, these personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in top gear, with personnel now reaching more than 400 and planned to hit the objective of 600 members swiftly. Complementing their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of finishing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to build the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – until then they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organization, different from the movement in F1 for more centralization, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred.
Apollo Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” stated Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of project teams all focusing on various components of the program in a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a process where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their team leader, that supervisor consults a supervisor at a different location, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” says Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is far more efficient and faster.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this flexible approach will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a considerable amount on the line for the sport, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
