A little more than one year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the green light as F1's newest entrant for the 2026 season. Building the organization from nothing has entailed a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be staged in the America, with approximately 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent team in the spring of 2023 not long after it was created, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core from that point and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the journey.
“You can have a short period reflecting at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in less than three years,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you think: ‘Well, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Chester achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the task of introducing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a factory team supported by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Building an grand prix team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you rarely get the possibility to alter cultural approach.”
With every day that passes focus are increasingly concentrated on the looming decisive point in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented recently and while Chester echoed this he believed the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation executing the correct procedures on the track. After we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on forward movement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Push
In the summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their vast knowledge in competing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We have a massive task to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a difficult start, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. In my view with this setup, with this group, these people, it's entirely possible we won't be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with staff now up to in excess of 400 and scheduled to hit the target of 600 rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the phase of completing an HQ at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to build the new engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, different from the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Chester referred.
NASA Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” remarked the team principal just before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how difficult it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of project teams all focusing on various components of the mission across a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a supervisor at a different location, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” notes Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to take charge. Avoiding hierarchical consent for everything is so much cleaner and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this agile strategy will be tested in the pressure of racing next season and there is no little amount on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta
