A little more than one year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the green light as Formula One’s latest entry for 2026. Establishing the organization from scratch has entailed a frenetic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be held in the United States, with just over a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent team in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart from that point and enjoys a wry smile when reflecting on the ride.
“There might be a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Wow, how impressive what we have built in less than three years,’” Chester states. “But then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yes, we still have a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
The CTO had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in control of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the challenge of introducing the all-American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the parent company, GM, into Formula One.
“Creating an Formula One team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you won't have the opportunity to change organizational mindset.”
With every day that elapses minds are more focused on the impending critical moment in Australia and goals are being handled.
“One must presume that any new team coming in is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon noted this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he thought the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that we are a serious contender performing the right things on the circuit. After we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we want to show forward movement after that.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Push
In August they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a pair notable for their vast knowledge in operating at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver expressed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. In my view with this setup, with this team, these personnel, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to the front and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in overdrive, with personnel now at more than 400 and scheduled to hit the goal of 600 quickly. In addition to their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the process of completing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are building the facility to manufacture the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will run power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex structure, contrary to the movement in the sport for increased consolidation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester alluded.
NASA Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” stated the team principal ahead of the British GP in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, instead of the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of project teams all tackling distinct elements of the program across a different facilities.
“When you must follow a protocol where an issue arises and they report it to their manager, that supervisor talks to a leader at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” explains the CTO. “So we empower people to handle things directly. Eliminating management approval for everything is so much cleaner and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is no little amount riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
