Approximately a full year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the green light as Formula One’s latest participant for 2026. Constructing the organization from scratch has involved a frenetic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 arrives on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be staged in the America, with just over 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are aware there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent team in early 2023 shortly after it was established, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its center from that point and enjoys a wry smile when considering the journey.
“You might get a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what the team has created in less than three years,’” he says. “And then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
The CTO had success at the Renault team in Alonso's victorious campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has quite compared with the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a works entry supported by the owner, GM, into Formula One.
“Establishing an F1 team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you won't have the possibility to change cultural approach.”
With each passing day that goes by focus are sharper on the looming critical moment in Melbourne and targets are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted earlier this year and while the CTO shared this view he believed the team had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “In order that we arrive and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation performing the right things on the race track. After we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate progression subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Push
In August they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their vast knowledge in performing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. In my view with this structure, with this group, these personnel, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in top gear, with personnel now up to in excess of 400 and intended to attain the target of 600 swiftly. Complementing their present headquarters at Silverstone, the organization are in the process of completing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organization, at odds with the trend in F1 for more centralization, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Chester referred.
Space Mission Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon just before the British GP in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how tough it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, rather than the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all focusing on various components of the program in a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a procedure where a challenge emerges and they report it to their team leader, that manager communicates with a supervisor somewhere else, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” explains Chester. “We give authority to people to handle things directly. Moving away from hierarchical consent for everything is far more efficient and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this nimble approach will be evaluated in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
