Approximately one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the green light as F1's latest entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from scratch has required a hectic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be hosted in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent operation in early 2023 shortly after it was established, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and gets a knowing grin when thinking about the ride.
“You can have a brief moment reflecting at what you’ve done and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what the team has created in less than three years,’” he says. “Then the next minute you consider: ‘Well, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Chester had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the challenge of bringing the all-American Cadillac name, a works entry backed by the owner, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an grand prix team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you won't have the chance to transform team culture.”
With each passing day that goes by focus are more focused on the looming moment of truth in Melbourne and expectations are being handled.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad coming in is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal commented recently and while Chester shared this view he thought the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he says. “So that we arrive and we operate well. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team executing the proper actions on the circuit. After we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on improvement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Push
In late summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their vast knowledge in operating at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas expressed the mood of combative optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a massive task to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to finish last. In my view with this structure, with this team, this staff, it's entirely possible we won't be able to get relatively quickly to the front and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with staff now reaching in excess of 400 and intended to attain the objective of six hundred rapidly. Alongside their existing facility at the UK base, the organization are in the midst of building an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are constructing the plant to produce the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate organisation, at odds with the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO alluded.
NASA Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” said Lowdon shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of project teams all working on distinct elements of the program in a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where an issue arises and they raise it up to their manager, that manager consults a leader at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” notes Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable people to handle things directly. Avoiding management approval for all decisions is so much cleaner and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this nimble methodology will be tested in the heat of competition next season and there is a significant degree at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
