Just over twelve months in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the green light as F1's latest entrant for the 2026 season. Building the organization from nothing has required a frenetic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be hosted in the America, with approximately 100 days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed project in early 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core since then and enjoys a knowing grin when reflecting on the ride.
“You can have a short period reflecting at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Incredible, how impressive what the team has created in less than three years,’” he says. “But then the next minute you realize: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
The CTO had success at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical development at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the all-American Cadillac brand, a works entry backed by the owner, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an F1 team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you don’t get the possibility to transform organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that goes by thoughts are more focused on the looming critical moment in the Australian GP and targets are being handled.
“You have to assume that any new team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated recently and while Nick Chester shared this view he believed the squad had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “In order that we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation doing the proper actions on the race track. After we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on progression subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive
In late summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for the 2026 season, a tandem distinguished for their vast knowledge in operating at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the attitude of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to stay at the back. In my view given this organization, with these individuals, these personnel, it's entirely possible we won't be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To that end hiring has been in overdrive, with personnel now at more than 400 and intended to reach the target of 600 members swiftly. Alongside their existing facility at Silverstone, the team are in the midst of building an HQ at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are building the facility to manufacture the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – until then they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organization, different from the direction in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
Space Mission Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” said the team principal shortly before the British GP in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a decentralized management comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the project at a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a procedure where an issue arises and they raise it up to their supervisor, that manager consults a leader in another department, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” explains Nick Chester. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Eliminating management approval for everything is far more efficient and faster.”
The Future
The success of this agile approach will be tested in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is no little amount on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
