Approximately twelve months in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the go-ahead as F1's most recent entrant for 2026. Building the squad from scratch has required a hectic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As the sport descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be staged in the America, with around 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic project in early 2023 soon after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its core from that point and has a wry smile when reflecting on the ride.
“You might get a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Wow, how impressive what the team has created in under three years,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you think: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the challenge of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a works entry supported by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Establishing an grand prix team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you don’t get the possibility to transform cultural approach.”
With each day that elapses thoughts are sharper on the impending decisive point in the Australian GP and goals are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any incoming team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal stated earlier this year and while the CTO shared this view he felt the team had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So that we show up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team executing the correct procedures on the race track. When we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on progression after that.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Drive
In August they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their priceless expertise in operating at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Bottas expressed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We have a massive task to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. In my view with this structure, with these individuals, these people, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to the front and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with staff now up to in excess of 400 and planned to reach the target of six hundred swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at Silverstone, the organization are in the midst of completing an headquarters at Fishers in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a intricate organization, different from the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred to.
Apollo Model
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” stated Graeme Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we recognize how challenging it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all working on distinct elements of the program at a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a process where an issue arises and they report it to their manager, that supervisor talks to a manager in another department, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” explains Nick Chester. “We give authority to people to handle things directly. Eliminating management approval for all decisions is much smoother and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the pressure of racing next season and there is a considerable amount at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
