Just over twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the official approval as F1's newest entrant for 2026. Building the organization from nothing has involved a intense pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be held in the US, with just over 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 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 never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent project in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center from that point and has a wry smile when thinking about the journey.
“You might get five minutes thinking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in under three years,’” he notes. “And then the following moment you consider: ‘Yes, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Chester had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has been quite like the task of introducing the all-American Cadillac name, a factory team backed by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Establishing an grand prix team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you won't have the chance to alter team culture.”
With every day that elapses thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the approaching critical moment in the Australian GP and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team joining the grid is going to be last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he thought the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So we arrive and we function efficiently. We want to show that we’re a proper team performing the correct procedures on the circuit. When we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we want to show progression subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Drive
In late summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a duo notable for their priceless expertise in operating at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a difficult start, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to finish last. I believe with this setup, with this group, this staff, there’s no reason why we won't be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with personnel now reaching in excess of 400 and scheduled to attain the goal of six hundred swiftly. Alongside their present headquarters at Silverstone, the squad are in the midst of finishing an main base at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organization, at odds with the trend in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred to.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” remarked the team principal just before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how tough it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of project teams all focusing on distinct elements of the program in a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a protocol where an issue arises and they raise it up to their manager, that leader communicates with a manager at a different location, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” says the CTO. “So we empower team members to take charge. Moving away from management approval for each action is far more efficient and faster.”
The Future
The success of this agile strategy will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a considerable amount riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
