Approximately one year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the official approval as F1's latest entrant for 2026. Constructing the organization from the ground up has entailed a hectic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be held in the United States, with approximately three months to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are cognizant there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent team in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was created, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its core since then and enjoys a wry smile when considering the ride.
“There might be five minutes thinking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “But then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical development at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has quite compared with the mission of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a factory team sponsored by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you rarely get the opportunity to transform organizational mindset.”
With each day that goes by minds are more focused on the looming moment of truth in Melbourne and targets are being managed.
“You have to assume that any incoming team coming in is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the team had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “In order that we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation performing the correct procedures on the track. When we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show progression subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Drive
In August they recruited Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo notable for their vast knowledge in performing at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the mood of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and we expect most likely a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to finish last. I believe with this structure, with this group, this staff, it's entirely possible we won't be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in full swing, with personnel now reaching over 400 and intended to hit the goal of 600 members swiftly. Alongside their present headquarters at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of completing an HQ at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are building the facility to build the power unit, set for the 2029 season – for now they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate structure, different from the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which the CTO alluded.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” said the team principal shortly before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we know how difficult it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
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 range of project teams all working on various components of the project at a different facilities.
“When you must follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their manager, that manager communicates with a manager somewhere else, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” says the CTO. “Therefore we enable staff to handle things directly. Eliminating hierarchical consent for everything is so much cleaner and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this agile approach will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is no little amount riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
