A little more than one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the green light as F1's latest participant for 2026. Building the organization from the ground up has entailed a frenetic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport converges on Vegas this weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the championship to be hosted in the America, with around three months to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are cognizant there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed project in early 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core since then and has a wry smile when reflecting on the ride.
“You can have a short period reflecting at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you think: ‘Yes, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the challenge of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Creating an grand prix team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you won't have the possibility to transform team culture.”
With every day that elapses thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the looming moment of truth in the Australian GP and expectations 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 just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” the team principal noted this year and while the CTO shared this view he felt the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we show up and we operate well. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender performing the correct procedures on the track. After we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show improvement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Drive
In late summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a pair notable for their vast knowledge in operating at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and it’s going to be probably 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 these individuals, this staff, it's entirely possible we can't manage to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in overdrive, with employees now at in excess of 400 and intended to reach the goal of 600 quickly. Alongside their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the midst of building an main base at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to build the new engine, set for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a intricate structure, different from the trend in the sport for increased consolidation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Chester alluded.
NASA Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” remarked the team principal ahead of the British GP in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we know how challenging it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all working on different aspects of the mission at a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a protocol where an issue arises and they report it to their team leader, that manager consults a supervisor somewhere else, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” explains Nick Chester. “We give authority to people to really get on with it. Moving away from management approval for each action is much smoother and faster.”
The Future
The success of this nimble strategy will be tested in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a significant degree riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
