A little more than one year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the official approval as F1's newest entrant for 2026. Constructing the team from the ground up has involved a frenetic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As Formula One descends on Las Vegas this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the championship to be staged in the America, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed operation in the spring of 2023 not long after it was established, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart ever since and has a wry smile when reflecting on the experience.
“There might be five minutes reflecting at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he says. “And then the next minute you consider: ‘Yes, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Chester had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical development at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has truly matched the challenge of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a factory team sponsored by the corporate entity, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an grand prix team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you don’t get the opportunity to alter team culture.”
With every day that elapses focus are increasingly concentrated on the impending critical moment in Australia and targets are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon noted this year and while the CTO echoed this he believed the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “In order that we show up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team executing the proper actions on the track. Once we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on improvement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Push
In the summer they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in performing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to finish last. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, these people, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with staff now up to more than 400 and scheduled to attain the target of 600 members rapidly. Complementing their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of building an main base at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to manufacture the new engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the movement in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred to.
Space Mission Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” stated Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how tough it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of project teams all tackling various components of the project in a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a procedure where an issue arises and they report it to their manager, that leader talks to a manager in another department, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” explains the CTO. “So we empower team members to really get on with it. Avoiding hierarchical consent for everything is so much cleaner and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a considerable amount at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
