A little more than one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the official approval as F1's latest entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from nothing has involved a intense work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 converges on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the campaign to be hosted in the United States, with around three months to go before they make their debut 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 sisyphean task, they are aware there will not be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart since then and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the journey.
“You can have a short period reflecting at what you’ve done and think: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we’ve done in under three years,’” he notes. “Then the next minute you think: ‘Well, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical development at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has quite compared with the task of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the corporate entity, GM, into F1.
“Establishing an F1 team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you won't have the opportunity to transform team culture.”
With each day that elapses thoughts are more focused on the impending decisive point in Melbourne and targets are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal commented this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he thought the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we arrive and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender doing the right things on the race track. Once we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we will focus on improvement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Drive
In August they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a duo distinguished for their invaluable experience in competing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the attitude of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he said. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a tough opening, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I am confident given this organization, with this group, these people, it's entirely possible we won't be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To that end hiring has been in full swing, with staff now reaching over 400 and intended to reach the objective of 600 rapidly. Complementing their existing facility at Silverstone, the team are in the process of finishing an HQ at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to manufacture the power unit, planned for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate organization, at odds with the movement in F1 for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred to.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” said the team principal ahead of the British GP in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we understand how difficult it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of project teams all working on various components of the project in a different facilities.
“When you must follow a procedure where an issue arises and they escalate it to their manager, that supervisor consults a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” says Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to take charge. Eliminating management approval for each action is far more efficient and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this flexible approach will be proven in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a considerable amount on the line for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
