Just over one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's newest entrant for 2026. Constructing the organization from the ground up has entailed a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As Formula One arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be staged in the United States, with just over 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed operation in the spring of 2023 not long after it was established, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core from that point and gets a amused expression when thinking about the ride.
“You might get a brief moment reflecting at what you’ve done and think: ‘Wow, what an achievement what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he says. “Then the very next instant you think: ‘Yes, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the task of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a factory team supported by the corporate entity, General Motors, into F1.
“Establishing an grand prix team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you rarely get the chance to change team culture.”
With each passing day that goes by minds are more focused on the approaching moment of truth in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented recently and while the CTO echoed this he felt the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So that we turn up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation doing the proper actions on the race track. Once we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Push
In August they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their vast knowledge in operating at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and we expect probably a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I am confident given this organization, with these individuals, these personnel, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in full swing, with personnel now reaching in excess of 400 and intended to reach the goal of 600 members swiftly. Alongside their present headquarters at Silverstone, the organization are in the midst of completing an main base at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to manufacture the new engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate structure, different from the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred.
Space Mission Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” remarked the team principal shortly before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how challenging it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, instead of the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of project teams all tackling various components of the mission in a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a process where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their team leader, that supervisor talks to a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” explains Chester. “Therefore we enable people to take charge. Eliminating managerial sign-off for each action is so much cleaner and quicker.”
The Future
The efficacy of this agile strategy will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a considerable amount riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
