Just over twelve months ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's newest entrant for 2026. Establishing the team from the ground up has required a frenetic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac understand time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be held in the US, with approximately three months to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic operation in March 2023 not long after it was established, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart from that point and has a knowing grin when reflecting on the ride.
“You might get five minutes reflecting at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we have built in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “And then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious seasons of the mid-2000s and was in control of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the mission of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a factory team sponsored by the owner, GM, into F1.
“Creating an Formula One team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you rarely get the chance to alter organizational mindset.”
With each day that elapses thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the impending critical moment in Melbourne and targets are being set realistically.
“One must presume 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 feat in itself,” Lowdon commented this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we turn up and we perform competently. We want to show that we are a serious contender performing the proper actions on the race track. After we prove that our credentials are solid, then we want to show improvement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Push
In August they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo distinguished for their priceless expertise in performing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Bottas echoed the mood of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We face 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. I am confident with this setup, with this group, these people, it's entirely possible we won't be able to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with personnel now up to more than 400 and scheduled to attain the goal of 600 rapidly. Alongside their current base at the UK base, the organization are in the process of completing an headquarters at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a intricate organization, at odds with the trend in F1 for greater centralisation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” stated Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of project teams all tackling various components of the mission at a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that manager communicates with a supervisor somewhere else, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” explains the CTO. “So we empower staff to take charge. Avoiding management approval for everything is so much cleaner and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this flexible strategy will be evaluated in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a considerable amount on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta
