A little more than one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the go-ahead as F1's most recent participant for 2026. Building the organization from scratch has required a frenetic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the campaign to be staged in the US, with around 100 days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic operation in the spring of 2023 soon after it was established, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core from that point and enjoys a knowing grin when considering the journey.
“There might be five minutes looking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “But then the very next instant you think: ‘Yes, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the mission of launching the iconic American Cadillac name, a works entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors, into F1.
“Creating an grand prix team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you rarely get the chance to transform cultural approach.”
With each passing day that elapses focus are increasingly concentrated on the looming decisive point in Melbourne and targets are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad entering the sport is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented recently and while Nick Chester echoed this he thought the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation performing the correct procedures on the track. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Push
In August they contracted Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their vast knowledge in operating at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver echoed the mood of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. In my view with this setup, with these individuals, these people, it's entirely possible we can't manage to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with staff now reaching more than 400 and intended to hit the target of 600 swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at Silverstone, the team are in the process of completing an HQ at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to manufacture the power unit, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will run Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, different from the direction in F1 for more centralization, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO alluded.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” said the team principal just before the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how difficult it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on distinct elements of the program across a different facilities.
“When you must follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that supervisor communicates with a supervisor in another department, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” explains the CTO. “We give authority to people to handle things directly. Eliminating management approval for all decisions is so much cleaner and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this nimble approach will be tested in the pressure of racing next season and there is a considerable amount on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
