A little more than a full year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's newest participant for 2026. Constructing the organization from nothing has entailed a frenetic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One converges on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be staged in the America, with around 100 days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing 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 task, they are cognizant there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic operation in March 2023 not long after it was established, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and has a wry smile when reflecting on the experience.
“You can have a short period looking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Wow, how impressive what we have built in less than three years,’” Chester states. “Then the next minute you consider: ‘Well, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in charge of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the corporate entity, GM, into F1.
“Creating an grand prix team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you rarely get the opportunity to change cultural approach.”
With every day that elapses minds are increasingly concentrated on the approaching critical moment in Melbourne and targets are being handled.
“You have to assume that any incoming team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while Chester shared this view he felt the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we arrive and we operate well. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender doing the proper actions on the race track. Once we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate progression subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Effort
In the summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We have a massive task to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to stay at the back. In my view with this structure, with these individuals, these personnel, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in top gear, with staff now at in excess of 400 and planned to reach the objective of 600 members swiftly. In addition to their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the phase of completing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to build the power unit, planned for the 2029 season – until then they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex structure, different from the trend in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred to.
Apollo Inspiration
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” stated Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how tough it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, instead of the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all working on distinct elements of the project across a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their team leader, that leader talks to a supervisor in another department, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says Chester. “Therefore we enable people to handle things directly. Eliminating managerial sign-off for everything is so much cleaner and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this flexible strategy will be proven in the heat of competition next season and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
