A little more than a full year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the green light as Formula One’s newest entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from scratch has involved a frenetic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the season to be staged in the US, with just over 100 days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic team in the spring of 2023 not long after it was established, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core from that point and has a amused expression when thinking about the journey.
“You might get five minutes reflecting at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he notes. “But then the next minute you realize: ‘Yes, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical development at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the mission of launching the all-American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Building an grand prix team from nothing, 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 chance to alter organizational mindset.”
With every day that passes thoughts are more focused on the looming moment of truth in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.
“You have to assume that any new team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon noted earlier this year and while the CTO shared this view he thought the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation performing the right things on the race track. After we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on improvement after that.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Effort
In the summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their drivers for the 2026 season, a duo remarkable for their vast knowledge in performing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the mood of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We have a massive task to do, and we expect probably a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I believe with this setup, with this group, these personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with personnel now at over 400 and planned to attain the target of six hundred swiftly. Alongside their current base at Silverstone, the organization are in the midst of completing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to produce the new engine, set for the 2029 season – until then they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, at odds with the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Chester alluded.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how difficult it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, rather than the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of specialist groups all focusing on distinct elements of the mission across a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where an issue arises and they escalate it to their supervisor, that manager talks to a supervisor in another department, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” explains Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to really get on with it. Eliminating managerial sign-off for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
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 significant degree at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
