A little more than twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the official approval as the world of Formula One's most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from scratch has required a hectic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be staged in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed operation in March 2023 not long after it was established, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart ever since and gets a knowing grin 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 less than three years,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Yeah, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has truly matched the mission of introducing the iconic American Cadillac name, a works entry sponsored by the owner, GM, into F1.
“Establishing an grand prix team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you don’t get the possibility to change cultural approach.”
With each day that elapses thoughts are sharper on the impending moment of truth in Australia and expectations are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team coming in is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted recently and while Chester echoed this he believed the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So that we arrive and we function efficiently. We want to show that we are a serious contender doing the proper actions on the track. Once we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we want to show improvement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Effort
In August they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their racers for the 2026 season, a tandem remarkable for their vast knowledge in competing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver echoed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it’s going to be probably a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I believe with this structure, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we can't manage to get relatively quickly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in full swing, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and planned to attain the goal of six hundred quickly. Alongside their present headquarters at the UK base, the team are in the phase of finishing an main base at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are building the center to build the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – until then they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a intricate organization, at odds with the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred.
NASA Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” remarked the team principal ahead of the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how challenging it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, rather than the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all focusing on various components of the project across a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where an issue arises and they report it to their supervisor, that supervisor communicates with a leader at a different location, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” notes Nick Chester. “So we empower team members to handle things directly. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is so much cleaner and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this agile approach will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a significant degree riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
