Just over a full year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the go-ahead as F1's most recent entry for 2026. Establishing the organization from scratch has involved a frenetic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be hosted in the America, with just over three months to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed project in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center since then and has a wry smile when considering the ride.
“There might be five minutes reflecting at what you’ve done and think: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we have built in less than three years,’” Chester states. “And then the very next instant you think: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
The CTO had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in charge of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has truly matched the task of introducing the all-American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the corporate entity, 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's unparalleled. In an existing team you rarely get the chance to change team culture.”
With each day that elapses minds are more focused on the looming critical moment in Australia and goals are being managed.
“One must presume that any incoming team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the organization had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we arrive and we operate well. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender executing the right things on the circuit. When we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate improvement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Effort
In August they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair notable for their priceless expertise in performing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver echoed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he said. “We have a massive task to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I believe given this organization, with these individuals, these personnel, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in top gear, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and planned to reach the target of six hundred rapidly. Alongside their present headquarters at Silverstone, the team are in the midst of completing an main base at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the center to produce the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – for now they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organization, contrary to the trend in the sport for more centralization, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester alluded.
Apollo Model
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” stated Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we know how tough it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all tackling different aspects of the program at a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a process where a challenge emerges and they report it to their manager, that leader communicates with a leader somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” notes Chester. “We give authority to people to handle things directly. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is far more efficient and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this agile strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a significant degree riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
