Just over twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the go-ahead as F1's most recent participant for 2026. Constructing the squad from scratch has entailed a frenetic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One converges on Las Vegas this weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the campaign to be held in the US, with approximately 100 days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are cognizant there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed team in the spring of 2023 soon after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart from that point and has a amused expression when thinking about the journey.
“You might get a short period looking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “Then the following moment you consider: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's victorious campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in command of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the challenge of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a works entry sponsored by the corporate entity, GM, into F1.
“Building an F1 team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you don’t get the opportunity to alter organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that goes by focus are more focused on the impending decisive point in the Australian GP and expectations are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad coming in is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal stated this year and while the CTO echoed this he thought the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So we show up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team performing the right things on the race track. When we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on improvement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push
In late summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for the 2026 season, a duo remarkable for their vast knowledge in operating at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the mood of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and we expect most likely a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to finish last. I am confident given this organization, with this group, these personnel, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with personnel now reaching more than 400 and intended to hit the target of 600 members swiftly. Alongside their present headquarters at the UK base, the organization are in the midst of building an headquarters at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to manufacture the power unit, set for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, contrary to the movement in F1 for more centralization, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” said Lowdon shortly before the British GP in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how tough it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of project teams all focusing on different aspects of the program across a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where an issue arises and they report it to their manager, that leader consults a supervisor in another department, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” says the CTO. “Therefore we enable team members to handle things directly. Eliminating managerial sign-off for each action is so much cleaner and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this agile methodology will be evaluated in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
