Just over one year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the official approval as F1's newest entry for 2026. Building the squad from the ground up has entailed a intense operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be held in the US, with approximately three months to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are aware there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed operation in March 2023 soon after it was created, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart ever since and enjoys a wry smile when considering the experience.
“You can have five minutes reflecting at what you’ve done and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we have built in under three years,’” Chester states. “And then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the challenge of bringing the all-American Cadillac brand, a factory team backed by the corporate entity, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an Formula One team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you rarely get the opportunity to change team culture.”
With each passing day that passes thoughts are sharper on the approaching critical moment in Melbourne and goals are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any incoming team coming in is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted recently and while the CTO shared this view he felt the organization had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation performing the right things on the race track. Once we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we want to show forward movement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Effort
In the summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in performing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it’s going to be probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we’re not there to stay at the back. In my view given this organization, with this team, these people, there is every reason that we won't be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To that end hiring has been in top gear, with staff now at over 400 and planned to reach the target of 600 quickly. Complementing their current base at the UK base, the organization are in the phase of building an HQ at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are building the plant to manufacture the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate organization, at odds with the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred to.
NASA Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” said Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We’re realistic, we recognize how challenging it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all focusing on different aspects of the mission at a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a protocol where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their team leader, that supervisor consults a leader in another department, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” notes Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to handle things directly. Eliminating hierarchical consent for all decisions is much smoother and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the heat of competition next season and there is no little amount on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
