Approximately one year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the green light as Formula One’s latest entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from the ground up has entailed a hectic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As F1 converges on Las Vegas this weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the season finale of the season to be held in the America, with around a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed team in March 2023 not long after it was established, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart ever since and gets a wry smile when reflecting on the experience.
“You can have a brief moment thinking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we have built in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “But then the very next instant you think: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious seasons of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the mission of launching the iconic American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Creating an grand prix team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you won't have the chance to change team culture.”
With each day that elapses minds are increasingly concentrated on the approaching moment of truth in the Australian GP and expectations are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So we show up and we operate well. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation executing the correct procedures on the race track. After we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on improvement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Push
In the summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a tandem distinguished for their invaluable experience in competing at the front in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a difficult start, because it is F1. But we’re not there to finish last. In my view with this structure, with these individuals, this staff, there’s no reason why we can't manage to advance swiftly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in full swing, with employees now up to more than 400 and intended to attain the target of 600 members swiftly. Complementing their current base at the UK base, the team are in the process of completing an main base at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to produce the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organization, contrary to the trend in F1 for more centralization, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” remarked Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, instead of the traditional management structure, a decentralized management similar to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of project teams all working on distinct elements of the mission in a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their team leader, that supervisor communicates with a supervisor somewhere else, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” notes the CTO. “Therefore we enable people to take charge. Eliminating managerial sign-off for all decisions is far more efficient and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this flexible approach will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a considerable amount riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
