Approximately twelve months in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the official approval as Formula One’s most recent participant for 2026. Building the organization from nothing has entailed a intense operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 descends on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be hosted in the United States, with approximately 100 days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic project in the spring of 2023 soon after it was formed, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its center since then and enjoys a amused expression when thinking about the ride.
“There might be a short period reflecting at what you’ve done and think: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he says. “But then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yeah, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's victorious years of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical direction at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has quite compared with the mission of bringing the all-American Cadillac brand, a works entry backed by the parent company, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an Formula One team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you rarely get the opportunity to transform organizational mindset.”
With every day that passes focus are more focused on the impending decisive point in Australia and goals are being managed.
“One must presume that any new team entering the sport is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Chester shared this view he felt the team had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we arrive and we function efficiently. We want to show that this is a professional operation executing the proper actions on the track. When we prove that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on improvement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Effort
In August they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair distinguished for their priceless expertise in performing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver expressed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We have a massive task to do, and it’s going to be probably a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I believe given this organization, with this group, these people, there is every reason that we can't manage to progress rapidly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with personnel now reaching over 400 and planned to attain the goal of 600 quickly. Alongside their present headquarters at the UK base, the organization are in the process of completing an headquarters at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the facility to manufacture the new engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – until then they will run power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex organisation, different from the direction in F1 for increased consolidation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which the CTO alluded.
Apollo Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” stated Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how difficult it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of project teams all working on different aspects of the program in a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a procedure where an issue arises and they report it to their team leader, that supervisor communicates with a supervisor in another department, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” says the CTO. “We give authority to people to take charge. Avoiding management approval for all decisions is much smoother and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is no little amount riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
