Approximately one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the official approval as F1's latest participant for 2026. Building the organization from the ground up has required a frenetic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As the sport arrives on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be staged in the US, with approximately a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic operation in March 2023 not long after it was established, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center from that point and gets a amused expression when reflecting on the ride.
“You can have five minutes reflecting at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in less than three years,’” he notes. “And then the following moment you consider: ‘Yeah, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Nick Chester had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons 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 launching the all-American Cadillac brand, a factory team sponsored by the owner, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Establishing an grand prix team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you don’t get the opportunity to change team culture.”
With each passing day that passes focus are more focused on the impending moment of truth in Australia and expectations are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team coming in is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal commented earlier this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he felt the team had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he says. “In order that we turn up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender executing the right things on the race track. When we prove that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on forward movement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Push
In late summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem notable for their priceless expertise in performing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the mood of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be probably a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. In my view with this setup, with this team, these personnel, it's entirely possible we can't manage to advance swiftly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in full swing, with personnel now reaching more than 400 and planned to reach the goal of 600 members rapidly. Alongside their current base at Silverstone, the squad are in the process of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the new engine, planned for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a intricate organization, contrary to the movement in F1 for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred to.
Space Mission Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in July. “We are pragmatic, we understand how challenging it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on various components of the mission across a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a protocol where an issue arises and they raise it up to their supervisor, that manager talks to a manager somewhere else, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” says the CTO. “Therefore we enable team members to take charge. Moving away from management approval for each action is much smoother and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this agile strategy will be evaluated in the heat of competition next season and there is no little amount at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
