🔗 Share this article

A little more than twelve months in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the official approval as F1's newest entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from nothing has entailed a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport converges on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.

The Tight Timeline to Melbourne

At the last event of the season to be hosted in the United States, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.

The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed operation in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center ever since and enjoys a knowing grin when reflecting on the experience.

“You might get a brief moment thinking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we have built in under three years,’” Chester states. “But then the very next instant you think: ‘Well, we still have a great deal to do.’”

A Unique Challenge

Chester enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors, into F1.

“Building an F1 team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you don’t get the opportunity to alter team culture.”

With each day that elapses thoughts are sharper on the approaching moment of truth in the Australian GP and goals are being handled.

“You have to assume that any new team coming in is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he thought the team had a point to prove as well.

“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we turn up and we function efficiently. We want to show that this is a professional operation executing the proper actions on the circuit. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we will focus on progression subsequently.”

Racing Talent and Team Building Push

In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a pair notable for their vast knowledge in competing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas echoed the mood of fighting spirit.

“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe given this organization, with this team, this staff, it's entirely possible we won't be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”

To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with personnel now at more than 400 and planned to hit the goal of six hundred rapidly. Complementing their current base at the UK base, the organization are in the process of building an headquarters at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to produce the 2029 engine, planned for the 2029 season – until then they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate organisation, contrary to the trend in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred to.

Apollo Blueprint

“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” said Lowdon shortly before the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we recognize how tough it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”

So they have implemented, rather than the traditional management structure, a flat management structure comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all focusing on various components of the program in a multiple sites.

“When you must follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their manager, that leader communicates with a leader somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” notes Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable people to really get on with it. Eliminating management approval for all decisions is so much cleaner and quicker.”

Upcoming Challenges

The effectiveness of this flexible strategy will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is no little amount at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta