Approximately one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the official approval as Formula One’s most recent participant for 2026. Constructing the squad from scratch has entailed a hectic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport arrives on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be hosted in the America, with around three months to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent project in March 2023 soon after it was established, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center ever since and enjoys a wry smile when considering the experience.
“There might be a brief moment reflecting at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in under three years,’” Chester states. “And then the next minute you think: ‘Yeah, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical development at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has been quite like the challenge of launching the iconic American Cadillac marque, a factory team backed by the owner, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Creating an grand prix team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you don’t get the opportunity to change team culture.”
With each day that passes focus are increasingly concentrated on the impending decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad coming in is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal noted earlier this year and while the CTO echoed this he believed the squad had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So we turn up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation doing the correct procedures on the track. Once we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Drive
In the summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a duo distinguished for their invaluable experience in operating at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Bottas echoed the mood of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and we expect probably a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to stay at the back. In my view with this setup, with these individuals, this staff, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To that end recruitment has been in full swing, with employees now at more than 400 and scheduled to attain the target of 600 members swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at Silverstone, the organization are in the midst of building an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to build the new engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex structure, at odds with the direction in the sport for more centralization, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred to.
NASA Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” said Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we understand how challenging it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, rather than the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a range of project teams all focusing on distinct elements of the project in a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a protocol where a challenge emerges and they report it to their team leader, that supervisor communicates with a leader in another department, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” explains Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to handle things directly. Avoiding management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and more rapid.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a significant degree riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
