Just over twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the go-ahead as Formula One’s newest entry for the 2026 season. Building the team from nothing has involved a intense work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the season to be held in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the nascent project in March 2023 shortly after it was created, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center from that point and gets a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“You might get a short period looking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in less than three years,’” he says. “And then the following moment you think: ‘Well, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
Nick Chester had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the task of introducing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a factory team sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Creating an F1 team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you won't have the possibility to transform cultural approach.”
With every day that elapses focus are increasingly concentrated on the approaching moment of truth in Melbourne and goals are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad joining the grid is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal stated this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the team had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So we arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that we are a serious contender doing the correct procedures on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on progression after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive
In the summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a duo remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas expressed the mood of determined optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and we expect probably a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. In my view with this structure, with these individuals, these people, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with employees now reaching over 400 and planned to hit the objective of six hundred rapidly. Complementing their existing facility at Silverstone, the squad are in the midst of completing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the facility to build the power unit, planned for 2029 – for now they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate structure, contrary to the trend in F1 for more centralization, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester alluded.
Apollo Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” said Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we recognize how difficult it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all working on various components of the mission at a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a process where someone has a problem and they report it to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a leader at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” notes Nick Chester. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Eliminating hierarchical consent for all decisions is much smoother and more rapid.”
The Future
The efficacy of this agile approach will be evaluated in the pressure of racing next season and there is a significant degree riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
