Just over one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the go-ahead as F1's latest entrant for the 2026 season. Building the organization from scratch has involved a hectic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 descends on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be held in the US, with approximately three months to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are cognizant there will not be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic team in March 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its center ever since and enjoys a wry smile when considering the experience.
“There might be a brief moment looking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we have built in less than three years,’” Chester states. “And then the very next instant you realize: ‘Well, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious seasons of 2005/2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has been quite like the mission of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a factory team backed by the corporate entity, GM, into Formula One.
“Establishing an F1 team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you won't have the chance to alter cultural approach.”
With every day that goes by thoughts are sharper on the looming moment of truth in the Australian GP and expectations are being handled.
“You have to assume that any incoming team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” the team principal commented recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we arrive and we function efficiently. We want to show that we’re a proper team doing the correct procedures on the circuit. After we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we want to show improvement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Drive
In late summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their priceless expertise in operating at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the attitude of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. In my view with this setup, with this group, this staff, there is every reason that we can't manage to progress rapidly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To that end recruitment has been in top gear, with staff now at in excess of 400 and intended to hit the target of 600 quickly. Complementing their present headquarters at Silverstone, the squad are in the midst of building an HQ at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are constructing the center to manufacture the new engine, planned for 2029 – until then they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate structure, different from the trend in F1 for increased consolidation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO alluded.
Apollo Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” stated Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we know how difficult it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a flat management structure comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of project teams all working on different aspects of the project at a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a procedure where an issue arises and they raise it up to their team leader, that manager talks to a manager in another department, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says the CTO. “We give authority to team members to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for each action is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this nimble approach will be evaluated in the pressure of racing next season and there is a significant degree riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
