Approximately one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the go-ahead as F1's newest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from nothing has required a hectic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the season to be staged in the US, with approximately a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent team in early 2023 shortly after it was established, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its core ever since and has a knowing grin when reflecting on the journey.
“There might be a short period thinking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Amazing, how impressive what the team has created in under three years,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yeah, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Chester had success at Renault in Alonso's victorious years of the mid-2000s and was in command of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the challenge of launching the all-American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an F1 team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you don’t get the possibility to transform team culture.”
With every day that elapses thoughts are more focused on the approaching moment of truth in Melbourne and targets are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal noted earlier this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he believed the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So that we turn up and we function efficiently. We want to show that we are a serious contender performing the correct procedures on the race track. When we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show progression from there on.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Push
In late summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a pair notable for their vast knowledge in competing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he said. “We have a mountain of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I am confident given this organization, with this team, these people, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in top gear, with personnel now up to more than 400 and scheduled to reach the objective of 600 rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at Silverstone, the squad are in the process of completing an main base at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the facility to manufacture the power unit, set for 2029 – for now they will use Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organization, at odds with the direction in F1 for greater centralisation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
NASA Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” said Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in July. “We are pragmatic, we know how difficult it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a decentralized management similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all working on distinct elements of the project at a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their team leader, that manager communicates with a manager in another department, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” explains the CTO. “So we empower staff to take charge. Avoiding hierarchical consent for each action is far more efficient and quicker.”
The Future
The success of this agile methodology will be evaluated in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta
