Approximately one year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the go-ahead as F1's newest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from nothing has entailed a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be hosted in the United States, with approximately three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent project in March 2023 soon after it was formed, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its core since then and enjoys a wry smile when thinking about the experience.
“There might be a brief moment thinking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he says. “And then the next minute you think: ‘Yeah, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious seasons of 2005/2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has been quite like the challenge of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a works entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors, into F1.
“Building an grand prix team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you won't have the opportunity to transform organizational mindset.”
With each day that passes thoughts are more focused on the impending moment of truth in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team coming in is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the squad had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “In order that we turn up and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation executing the proper actions on the race track. After we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show progression from there on.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Drive
In the summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their invaluable experience in operating at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We face a massive task to do, and it’s going to be most likely a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I believe with this structure, with this team, this staff, there’s no reason why we can't manage to advance swiftly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in overdrive, with staff now up to in excess of 400 and scheduled to attain the goal of six hundred quickly. In addition to their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the phase of finishing an main base at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to build the new engine, planned for 2029 – until then they will use Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, contrary to the movement in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred to.
Apollo Model
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” remarked the team principal just before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we know how difficult it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of project teams all working on various components of the project in a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a process where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their supervisor, that manager talks to a leader at a different location, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” says Chester. “We give authority to staff to really get on with it. Moving away from managerial sign-off for everything is much smoother and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this agile strategy will be proven in the pressure of racing next season and there is a considerable amount riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
