Just over one year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the green light as Formula One’s newest entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from the ground up has required a intense work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the championship to be hosted in the United States, with just over 100 days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed team in the spring of 2023 soon after it was created, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core from that point and enjoys a amused expression when considering the experience.
“You might get a brief moment reflecting at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “But then the next minute you consider: ‘Yeah, we still have a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the challenge of introducing the all-American Cadillac brand, a factory team supported by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an F1 team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you rarely get the chance to change cultural approach.”
With each day that passes focus are increasingly concentrated on the approaching critical moment in Melbourne and goals are being handled.
“One must presume that any incoming team joining the grid is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal commented earlier this year and while the CTO echoed this he thought the organization had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So we show up and we function efficiently. We want to show that this is a professional operation executing the proper actions on the race track. Once we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on progression subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Drive
In late summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem notable for their vast knowledge in operating at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver echoed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to finish last. I am confident given this organization, with this group, these personnel, there’s no reason why we can't manage to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with staff now reaching in excess of 400 and intended to hit the target of 600 members quickly. Complementing their current base at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of finishing an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the movement in F1 for greater centralisation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred.
NASA Inspiration
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in July. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how challenging it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of specialist groups all focusing on distinct elements of the project across a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where an issue arises and they escalate it to their manager, that manager talks to a leader at a different location, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” explains Chester. “So we empower staff to take charge. Avoiding hierarchical consent for each action is so much cleaner and quicker.”
The Future
The efficacy of this agile methodology will be proven in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is no little amount on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
