A little more than one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately given the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's most recent participant for 2026. Establishing the squad from nothing has involved a frenetic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As Formula One converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the last event of the season to be held in the US, with around 100 days to go before they take to the track 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 monumental endeavor, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed operation in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was created, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center ever since and enjoys a knowing grin when thinking about the journey.
“There might be five minutes reflecting at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in under three years,’” Chester states. “And then the next minute you think: ‘Yeah, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical development at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the mission of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Creating an grand prix team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you won't have the opportunity to transform cultural approach.”
With each day that passes minds are more focused on the looming critical moment in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.
“One must presume that any new team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal stated this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he believed the team had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So that we turn up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation performing the correct procedures on the circuit. After we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push
In the summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a duo remarkable for their vast knowledge in operating at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I believe with this setup, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to the front and achieve good results.”
To that end hiring has been in full swing, with employees now up to more than 400 and planned to attain the goal of 600 members swiftly. Alongside their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the phase of building an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – for now they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organisation, different from the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred.
NASA Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” remarked the team principal ahead of the British GP in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how challenging it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all tackling various components of the mission in a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a process where an issue arises and they report it to their team leader, that supervisor talks to a leader in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” notes Chester. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Avoiding management approval for all decisions is much smoother and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this agile strategy will be tested in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is no little amount riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
