A little more than one year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the green light as Formula One’s newest participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from the ground up has required a frenetic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be hosted in the United States, with around 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed team in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was established, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart since then and enjoys a amused expression when thinking about the ride.
“You can have five minutes reflecting at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we have built in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “But then the next minute you think: ‘Yes, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Task
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has truly matched the challenge of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a works entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an grand prix team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you won't have the chance to alter organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that elapses thoughts are sharper on the approaching critical moment in the Australian GP and goals are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any incoming team coming in is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the team had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation executing the proper actions on the race track. After we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show progression subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Push
In August they signed Checo Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo notable for their invaluable experience in competing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and we expect probably a tough opening, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I believe given this organization, with this group, these people, it's entirely possible we won't be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To that end hiring has been in top gear, with staff now at more than 400 and scheduled to attain the goal of 600 swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the phase of completing an headquarters at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to manufacture the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – until then they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, different from the trend in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred to.
Space Mission Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” stated Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure akin to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all tackling different aspects of the mission at a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a procedure where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their supervisor, that leader talks to a leader somewhere else, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” explains the CTO. “Therefore we enable team members to take charge. Moving away from management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and more rapid.”
The Future
The efficacy of this nimble methodology will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a significant degree riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
