Just over a full year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the go-ahead as Formula One’s latest entrant for 2026. Constructing the squad from the ground up has required a frenetic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport arrives on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be hosted in the America, with just over a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent project in the spring of 2023 soon after it was formed, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center since then and enjoys a wry smile when considering the experience.
“There might be a short period reflecting at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “But then the next minute you think: ‘Yeah, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's victorious years of 2005/2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has truly matched the task of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a works entry supported by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Creating an grand prix team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you don’t get the chance to alter organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that passes focus are increasingly concentrated on the approaching decisive point in Australia and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad joining the grid is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented recently and while the CTO shared this view he felt the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So we arrive and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation executing the correct procedures on the race track. After we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate improvement after that.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Drive
In August they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem notable for their vast knowledge in competing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver echoed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he said. “We have a massive task to do, and we expect almost certainly a challenging beginning, 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, there’s no reason why we can't manage to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with personnel now reaching in excess of 400 and scheduled to reach the goal of six hundred quickly. Complementing their present headquarters at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of building an main base at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to build the power unit, set for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organization, different from the movement in F1 for increased consolidation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Chester referred to.
NASA Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” said the team principal shortly before the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we know how tough it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, instead of the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all tackling various components of the program across a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a process where an issue arises and they report it to their manager, that manager communicates with a leader at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “We give authority to staff to take charge. Eliminating management approval for all decisions is much smoother and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this nimble approach will be proven in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is no little amount on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
