A little more than a full year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the official approval as Formula One’s newest entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from nothing has entailed a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As Formula One arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the campaign to be staged in the America, with approximately a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed operation in the spring of 2023 not long after it was created, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its core since then and gets a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“You might get a brief moment thinking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Wow, how impressive what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he notes. “But then the very next instant you consider: ‘Well, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
The CTO had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical development at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has been quite like the challenge of launching the all-American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Building an grand prix team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you don’t get the chance to change organizational mindset.”
With each day that elapses minds are sharper on the looming moment of truth in Melbourne and goals are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented this year and while Chester echoed this he thought the team had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation performing the right things on the race track. After we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on improvement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Effort
In late summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for the 2026 season, a tandem notable for their vast knowledge in operating at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to finish last. I am confident with this structure, with these individuals, this staff, there’s no reason why we won't be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in top gear, with staff now reaching more than 400 and intended to reach the target of 600 quickly. Complementing their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the phase of finishing an main base at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the power unit, scheduled for the 2029 season – until then they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organisation, contrary to the direction in the sport for increased consolidation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred.
NASA Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” said Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British GP in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how challenging it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of project teams all working on different aspects of the project in a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a process where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their manager, that manager talks to a leader in another department, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” explains the CTO. “We give authority to team members to take charge. Moving away from management approval for everything is much smoother and quicker.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this flexible approach will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is no little amount riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
