🔗 Share this article

A little more than one year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the green light as the world of Formula One's newest entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from scratch has involved a intense operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 converges on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.

The Countdown to Melbourne

At the last event of the championship to be held in the America, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.

The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent project in March 2023 soon after it was established, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its center since then and enjoys a wry smile when thinking about the experience.

“There might be five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we’ve done in under three years,’” he notes. “And then the next minute you think: ‘Yes, we still have a great deal to do.’”

An Unprecedented Challenge

Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's title-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has truly matched the challenge of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors, into Formula One.

“Establishing an grand prix team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you rarely get the chance to change cultural approach.”

With each passing day that goes by thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.

“One must presume that a brand-new squad coming in is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal noted this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he thought the organization had a reputation to build as well.

“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So that we arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that we are a serious contender executing the correct procedures on the circuit. When we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate improvement subsequently.”

Racing Talent and Recruitment Drive

In the summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a pair remarkable for their invaluable experience in competing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas echoed the sentiment of combative optimism.

“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be probably a tough opening, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to finish last. I am confident with this setup, with these individuals, these people, there’s no reason why we can't manage to get relatively quickly to the front and taste victory.”

To that end hiring has been in full swing, with personnel now at more than 400 and scheduled to hit the goal of 600 rapidly. Alongside their present headquarters at Silverstone, the organization are in the phase of completing an headquarters at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to manufacture the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organization, contrary to the direction in F1 for greater centralisation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester alluded.

Space Mission Blueprint

“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” said Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how challenging it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”

So they have implemented, instead of the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all tackling various components of the program across a multiple sites.

“If you have to go through a process where an issue arises and they report it to their manager, that supervisor talks to a supervisor in another department, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says Chester. “We give authority to team members to take charge. Avoiding managerial sign-off for each action is so much cleaner and more rapid.”

The Future

The effectiveness of this flexible approach will be tested in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a considerable amount at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta