Just over a full year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the official approval as Formula One’s newest participant for 2026. Constructing the organization from scratch has involved a intense work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As the sport arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the season to be held in the United States, with around a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are cognizant there will not be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic team in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was established, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core since then and has a wry smile when considering the journey.
“There might be a short period thinking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in less than three years,’” he notes. “And then the next minute you think: ‘Yes, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Nick Chester had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in command of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the challenge of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a works entry backed by the owner, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an Formula One team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you rarely get the chance to change cultural approach.”
With each passing day that elapses focus are increasingly concentrated on the impending critical moment in Australia and targets are being handled.
“You have to assume that any incoming team coming in is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal commented earlier this year and while the CTO shared this view he felt the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “In order that we turn up and we function efficiently. We want to show that we’re a proper team executing the correct procedures on the circuit. When we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on progression subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Push
In August they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a pair distinguished for their priceless expertise in operating at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to finish last. In my view given this organization, with these individuals, these people, it's entirely possible we can't manage to get relatively quickly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in overdrive, with personnel now up to over 400 and scheduled to hit the objective of 600 members quickly. Complementing their present headquarters at the UK base, the squad are in the process of building an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are developing the plant to produce the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex organisation, contrary to the direction in Formula One for more centralization, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred to.
Apollo Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” said the team principal shortly before the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we know how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. OK, 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 similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of project teams all tackling distinct elements of the mission across a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a process where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their team leader, that supervisor communicates with a leader somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” notes Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to really get on with it. Moving away from managerial sign-off for all decisions is much smoother and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this agile approach will be proven in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is no little amount at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the young American Colton Herta