Approximately twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the green light as Formula One’s most recent entry for 2026. Establishing the team from nothing has involved a frenetic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the season to be held in the United States, with around 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are aware there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent project in the spring of 2023 not long after it was established, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center ever since and enjoys a knowing grin when reflecting on the journey.
“There might be five minutes reflecting at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we have built in under three years,’” he says. “Then the next minute you think: ‘Yeah, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Task
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical development at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the task of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an Formula One team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you don’t get the opportunity to alter organizational mindset.”
With each day that elapses thoughts are sharper on the impending decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated earlier this year and while the CTO shared this view he thought the team had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So that we arrive and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender executing the proper actions on the track. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we will focus on forward movement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive
In August they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their racers for the 2026 season, a tandem distinguished for their invaluable experience in operating at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver expressed the mood of determined optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he said. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. In my view with this structure, with this group, these personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To that end recruitment has been in top gear, with employees now reaching in excess of 400 and scheduled to attain the goal of 600 quickly. In addition to their present headquarters at Silverstone, the team are in the phase of completing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to produce the new engine, set for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex organization, different from the trend in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Chester alluded.
NASA Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” said Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we know how difficult it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Well, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, instead of the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all focusing on different aspects of the mission in a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a protocol where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their supervisor, that manager talks to a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says the CTO. “Therefore we enable staff to take charge. Moving away from management approval for all decisions is much smoother and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this agile methodology will be proven in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is no little amount on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
