Approximately a full year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the green light as F1's most recent participant for 2026. Establishing the squad from scratch has involved a hectic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 descends on Vegas this race weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be hosted in the America, with around a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic team in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center from that point and has a wry smile when reflecting on the experience.
“You might get a brief moment looking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Wow, what an achievement what the team has created in under three years,’” he notes. “Then the next minute you think: ‘Well, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has been quite like the mission of bringing the all-American Cadillac name, a factory team sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into F1.
“Creating an F1 team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you won't have the opportunity to transform organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that passes focus are increasingly concentrated on the approaching critical moment in Australia and goals are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any new team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal stated earlier this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So we arrive and we operate well. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team executing the proper actions on the track. When we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on forward movement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Effort
In late summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair notable for their invaluable experience in operating at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Bottas expressed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and we expect most likely a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to finish last. I am confident with this structure, with this team, this staff, it's entirely possible we won't be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with staff now up to in excess of 400 and planned to hit the objective of 600 members swiftly. Complementing their current base at the UK base, the team are in the midst of building an main base at Fishers in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are building the plant to produce the power unit, planned for 2029 – until then they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex structure, contrary to the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred to.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
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 Apollo teams all working on distinct elements of the project in a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a process where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their manager, that manager talks to a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” explains Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to take charge. Avoiding management approval for all decisions is much smoother and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this flexible methodology will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix 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 American Colton Herta
