Just over twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the official approval as the world of Formula One's most recent entry for 2026. Constructing the squad from the ground up has required a intense operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As the sport arrives on Vegas this weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be hosted in the America, with approximately 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are aware there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent team in March 2023 not long after it was created, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core since then and enjoys a knowing grin when reflecting on the ride.
“You might get a short period reflecting at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Amazing, how impressive what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he says. “And then the following moment you realize: ‘Well, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the mission of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors, into F1.
“Building an Formula One team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you don’t get the opportunity to transform organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that goes by minds are sharper on the approaching critical moment in Australia and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal noted earlier this year and while the CTO shared this view he thought the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So that we turn up and we operate well. We want to show that we are a serious contender doing the right things on the race track. Once we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate improvement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Push
In August they signed Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a pair distinguished for their priceless expertise in competing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver expressed the mood of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it will likely be most likely a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I am confident with this structure, with this team, these personnel, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with employees now up to over 400 and intended to attain the target of six hundred quickly. Alongside their existing facility at the UK base, the organization are in the midst of completing an HQ at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to produce the power unit, scheduled for the 2029 season – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex structure, at odds with the movement in the sport for increased consolidation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred.
Apollo Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said the team principal just before the British GP in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of project teams all tackling different aspects of the mission in a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their team leader, that manager communicates with a leader somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to take charge. Moving away from hierarchical consent for everything is much smoother and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this agile approach will be tested in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a considerable amount at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have taken on as their development driver the young American Colton Herta
