A little more than one year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the official approval as Formula One’s latest participant for 2026. Building the organization from nothing has required a frenetic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 converges on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be staged in the America, with around three months to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed operation in the spring of 2023 not long after it was formed, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart since then and enjoys a knowing grin when considering the experience.
“You can have a short period reflecting at what you’ve done and go: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he says. “But then the next minute you think: ‘Well, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the challenge of bringing the all-American Cadillac name, a works entry sponsored by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an Formula One team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you don’t get the possibility to transform team culture.”
With each passing day that goes by focus are increasingly concentrated on the approaching moment of truth in Australia and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented this year and while Chester echoed this he thought the team had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So we show up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender executing the proper actions on the race track. When we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show progression subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Drive
In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for the 2026 season, a pair notable for their invaluable experience in competing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. In my view given this organization, with these individuals, these people, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with personnel now reaching over 400 and planned to attain the goal of 600 quickly. Complementing their current base at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of finishing an HQ at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the center to build the new engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organisation, at odds with the movement in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
Space Mission Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” remarked the team principal ahead of the British GP in July. “We are pragmatic, we know how challenging it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, instead of the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of project teams all focusing on various components of the program across a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a process where an issue arises and they escalate it to their team leader, that leader consults a leader at a different location, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” explains the CTO. “So we empower staff to take charge. Eliminating managerial sign-off for each action is far more efficient and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this flexible methodology will be tested in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is no little amount riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
