Just over twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the official approval as F1's most recent participant for 2026. Establishing the team from nothing has required a frenetic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be hosted in the United States, with just over 100 days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed team in the spring of 2023 not long after it was formed, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its core from that point and has a knowing grin when reflecting on the ride.
“You can have a short period thinking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we’ve done in under three years,’” he notes. “And then the following moment you consider: ‘Yeah, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's title-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in charge of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has quite compared with the task of launching the all-American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors, into F1.
“Creating an Formula One team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the opportunity to change organizational mindset.”
With each day that goes by focus are more focused on the approaching decisive point in Australia and goals are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any new team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal stated this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he believed the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender doing the correct procedures on the race track. When we prove that our credentials are solid, then we want to show progression subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Drive
In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo distinguished for their vast knowledge in performing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the mood of combative optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he said. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I believe with this setup, with this group, this staff, there is every reason that we can't manage to get relatively quickly to the front and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with employees now up to more than 400 and intended to reach the target of 600 members quickly. In addition to their existing facility at Silverstone, the team are in the process of finishing an headquarters at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are building the center to manufacture the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the movement in F1 for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester alluded.
NASA Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” said the team principal ahead of the Silverstone race in July. “We are pragmatic, we understand how difficult it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, rather than the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of project teams all working on distinct elements of the mission in a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they report it to their team leader, that leader consults a leader at a different location, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says Chester. “We give authority to team members to really get on with it. Avoiding management approval for all decisions is much smoother and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this flexible methodology will be evaluated in the heat of competition next season and there is a significant degree at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
