Just over one year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the go-ahead as Formula One’s most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from the ground up has required a hectic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the season finale of the campaign to be staged in the United States, with approximately three months to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are aware there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic operation in March 2023 soon after it was created, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core since then and gets a knowing grin when thinking about the ride.
“You might get a short period reflecting at what you’ve done and think: ‘Wow, how impressive what we’ve done in less than three years,’” Chester states. “Then the next minute you realize: ‘Yeah, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the task of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a works entry backed by the parent company, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an F1 team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you rarely get the chance to transform organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that goes by thoughts are more focused on the looming critical moment in the Australian GP and expectations are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team coming in is going to be last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So we show up and we operate well. We want to show that this is a professional operation performing the correct procedures on the circuit. When we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on improvement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Effort
In late summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a tandem notable for their priceless expertise in operating at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Bottas echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to finish last. In my view given this organization, with this group, these people, there is every reason that we can't manage to progress rapidly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in overdrive, with personnel now reaching over 400 and intended to reach the objective of 600 members rapidly. Complementing their existing facility at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of finishing an main base at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are building the facility to build the new engine, planned for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organisation, different from the trend in the sport for more centralization, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Chester alluded.
NASA Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in July. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how difficult it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of project teams all working on distinct elements of the mission at a different facilities.
“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they report it to their manager, that manager communicates with a leader at a different location, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” says Nick Chester. “So we empower people to take charge. Eliminating management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this nimble methodology will be tested in the heat of competition next season and there is a considerable amount at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the young American Colton Herta
