🔗 Share this article

A little more than twelve months previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the green light as Formula One’s newest participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from nothing has required a frenetic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As F1 converges on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac understand time is getting tight.

The Tight Timeline to Melbourne

At the season finale of the campaign to be staged in the United States, with around three months to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.

The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent project in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center from that point and enjoys a amused expression when considering the ride.

“You can have a short period looking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in under three years,’” he says. “Then the next minute you consider: ‘Yeah, there is still quite a lot to do.’”

A Unique Challenge

The CTO had success at the Renault team in Alonso's victorious years of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical development at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the mission of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a factory team sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.

“Building an F1 team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you won't have the opportunity to alter organizational mindset.”

With every day that elapses thoughts are sharper on the approaching critical moment in the Australian GP and targets are being set realistically.

“One must presume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is going to be last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he felt the squad had a statement to make as well.

“Our primary goal we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So we show up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender executing the proper actions on the track. Once we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement subsequently.”

Racing Talent and Team Building Drive

In August they recruited Checo Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a duo distinguished for their invaluable experience in competing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the sentiment of combative optimism.

“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there 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 to the front and achieve good results.”

To realize that ambition hiring has been in full swing, with personnel now reaching over 400 and planned to reach the target of 600 quickly. In addition to their present headquarters at Silverstone, the team are in the phase of building an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are building the center to produce the 2029 engine, set for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a sophisticated structure, at odds with the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO alluded.

Space Mission Inspiration

“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” remarked Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we recognize how tough it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”

So they have adopted, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all working on distinct elements of the program in a variety of locations.

“In a system where you follow a process where an issue arises and they report it to their team leader, that leader talks to a manager in another department, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” explains Nick Chester. “So we empower team members to take charge. Avoiding management approval for each action is so much cleaner and more rapid.”

What Lies Ahead

The success of this nimble methodology will be proven in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a significant degree riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta