Just over one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the green light as F1's newest entry for the 2026 season. Building the organization from nothing has entailed a intense work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be hosted in the America, with approximately a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed operation in the spring of 2023 not long after it was created, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart since then and enjoys a wry smile when thinking about the journey.
“You might get a short period reflecting at what you’ve done and think: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you consider: ‘Well, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
The CTO had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac name, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an Formula One team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you won't have the chance to change organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that goes by minds are more focused on the impending critical moment in the Australian GP and goals are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal stated recently and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we arrive and we operate well. We want to show that we’re a proper team performing the correct procedures on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we want to show improvement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Push
In August they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their vast knowledge in operating at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the mood of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and we expect almost certainly a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. In my view given this organization, with this group, this staff, it's entirely possible we can't manage to progress rapidly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in top gear, with employees now reaching in excess of 400 and intended to hit the objective of 600 members quickly. In addition to their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the midst of finishing an main base at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are developing the center to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will run power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a intricate organization, at odds with the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred to.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we understand how difficult it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, instead of the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of NASA's, where there were a range of specialist groups all tackling different aspects of the mission in a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a process where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their team leader, that manager communicates with a manager somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” notes Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to really get on with it. Moving away from hierarchical consent for all decisions is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this nimble methodology will be proven in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a significant degree riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
