Approximately twelve months in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the go-ahead as F1's newest participant for the 2026 season. Building the squad from the ground up has involved a intense operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As Formula One converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be hosted in the United States, with approximately a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic operation in early 2023 not long after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core from that point and has a knowing grin when reflecting on the ride.
“You can have a brief moment reflecting at what you’ve done and say: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we’ve done in under three years,’” Chester states. “But then the very next instant you consider: ‘Well, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious years of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has truly matched the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the parent company, GM, into F1.
“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 well-set team you don’t get the possibility to change cultural approach.”
With each day that elapses thoughts are sharper on the looming moment of truth in Australia and targets are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team coming in is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon commented recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he says. “So we turn up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation executing the proper actions on the race track. Once we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive
In late summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a pair remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver expressed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and we expect almost certainly a difficult start, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I believe given this organization, with this group, these personnel, it's entirely possible we can't manage to advance swiftly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with employees now up to over 400 and scheduled to hit the objective of 600 quickly. In addition to their current base at the UK base, the organization are in the process of completing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are developing the facility to produce the power unit, planned for the 2029 season – until then they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate structure, at odds with the trend in F1 for increased consolidation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO alluded.
Space Mission Model
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in July. “We’re realistic, we know how difficult it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the program across a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a protocol where an issue arises and they escalate it to their team leader, that leader talks to a leader in another department, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” notes the CTO. “We give authority to staff to take charge. Eliminating managerial sign-off for all decisions is so much cleaner and quicker.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this flexible methodology will be tested in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a considerable amount at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
