Just over a full year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the green light as Formula One’s newest entry for 2026. Establishing the organization from scratch has required a hectic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As the sport arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be hosted in the America, with approximately three months to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent operation in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was created, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart since then and gets a wry smile when considering the ride.
“There might be a short period reflecting at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the very next instant you think: ‘Yeah, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Nick Chester had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical development at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has quite compared with the task of bringing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a works entry backed by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Establishing an Formula One team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you don’t get the chance to transform organizational mindset.”
With every day that goes by minds are sharper on the looming decisive point 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 simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal commented earlier this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that we are a serious contender executing the correct procedures on the circuit. Once we prove that we’re really credible, then we will focus on forward movement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Push
In late summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a duo notable for their priceless expertise in performing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the mood of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I believe given this organization, with this team, these people, there’s no reason why we can't manage to get relatively quickly to the front and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with personnel now at more than 400 and planned to reach the target of six hundred swiftly. In addition to their present headquarters at the UK base, the organization are in the midst of building an main base at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are building the facility to produce the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate structure, contrary to the movement in the sport for increased consolidation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester alluded.
Apollo Model
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, 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 flat management structure akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all tackling various components of the program across a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they report it to their supervisor, that leader communicates with a leader somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” says Nick Chester. “We give authority to people to take charge. Avoiding hierarchical consent for each action is far more efficient and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this agile strategy will be evaluated in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a significant degree at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
