🔗 Share this article

Just over twelve months in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the green light as the world of Formula One's most recent entrant for 2026. Establishing the organization from scratch has involved a frenetic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport descends on Las Vegas this weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.

The Tight Timeline to Melbourne

At the final race of the championship to be hosted in the US, with approximately three months to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.

The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent team in March 2023 soon after it was formed, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart since then and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the experience.

“You might get five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Wow, how impressive what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he says. “But then the very next instant you think: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”

An Unprecedented Task

Chester achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the challenge of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the parent company, GM, into F1.

“Creating an F1 team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you don’t get the chance to alter organizational mindset.”

With every day that elapses minds are increasingly concentrated on the approaching moment of truth in the Australian GP and expectations are being handled.

“You have to assume that any new team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon stated recently and while Nick Chester shared this view he felt the organization had a statement to make as well.

“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team performing the proper actions on the track. After we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate progression subsequently.”

Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive

In the summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their vast knowledge in operating at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the mood of fighting spirit.

“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I believe given this organization, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”

To achieve that goal hiring has been in top gear, with staff now reaching more than 400 and intended to reach the goal of 600 quickly. Alongside their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the phase of building an HQ at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to produce the new engine, planned for 2029 – until then they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester alluded.

Apollo Blueprint

“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” stated Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how difficult it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”

So they have embraced, rather than the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all working on various components of the project in a different facilities.

“In a system where you follow a protocol where an issue arises and they escalate it to their supervisor, that manager communicates with a manager in another department, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” notes Nick Chester. “We give authority to people to handle things directly. Moving away from management approval for each action is so much cleaner and more rapid.”

What Lies Ahead

The efficacy of this nimble approach will be tested in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a considerable amount riding on this for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta