Just over a full year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the official approval as Formula One’s newest entry for 2026. Establishing the team from the ground up has required a frenetic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As the sport converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be held in the United States, with around 100 days to go before they take to the track 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 task, they are cognizant there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent team in March 2023 soon after it was formed, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core since then and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the experience.
“There might be a short period thinking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in under three years,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you think: ‘Well, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has truly matched the mission of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a factory team backed by the parent company, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an F1 team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you won't have the chance to alter organizational mindset.”
With every day that goes by focus are increasingly concentrated on the approaching decisive point in the Australian GP and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the squad had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we turn up and we operate well. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation doing the proper actions on the circuit. When we prove that our credentials are solid, then we want to show improvement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Effort
In the summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a tandem notable for their vast knowledge in operating at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We have a massive task to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I believe with this structure, with this team, these people, there is every reason that we can't manage to advance swiftly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in full swing, with staff now up to in excess of 400 and scheduled to hit the objective of 600 members rapidly. In addition to their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the process of finishing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate organisation, contrary to the trend in the sport for increased consolidation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred to.
NASA Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in July. “We are pragmatic, we know how difficult it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of project teams all focusing on distinct elements of the program across a different facilities.
“When you must follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that supervisor talks to a manager somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says the CTO. “So we empower staff to take charge. Eliminating managerial sign-off for everything is much smoother and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this flexible methodology will be tested in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is no little amount riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
