Just over a full year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the green light as F1's most recent entry for 2026. Constructing the squad from nothing has required a frenetic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be staged in the US, with approximately a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed team in the spring of 2023 soon after it was created, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center ever since and enjoys a amused expression when reflecting on the ride.
“You might get a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in under three years,’” he notes. “Then the next minute you consider: ‘Well, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Chester achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the mission of launching the all-American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Building an grand prix team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you won't have the opportunity to change organizational mindset.”
With each day that passes minds are sharper on the looming decisive point in Melbourne and goals are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any incoming team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while the CTO echoed this he believed the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation executing the correct procedures on the track. When we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate progression subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Push
In August they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a pair distinguished for their invaluable experience in competing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to finish last. I am confident with this setup, with this group, these people, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in top gear, with employees now reaching more than 400 and scheduled to reach the target of six hundred rapidly. Complementing their existing facility at Silverstone, the team are in the process of building an headquarters at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are building the center to build the new engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate organisation, contrary to the direction in the sport for more centralization, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester alluded.
NASA Blueprint
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Lowdon shortly before the British GP in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we understand how tough it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all working on various components of the program across a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their manager, that supervisor talks to a leader somewhere else, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” explains Chester. “We give authority to team members to take charge. Eliminating managerial sign-off for all decisions is so much cleaner and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this flexible strategy will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a considerable amount on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
