Just over one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the go-ahead as Formula One’s newest entry for 2026. Building the organization from nothing has entailed a hectic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One arrives on Vegas this weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the final race of the championship to be hosted in the America, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are cognizant there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent operation in the spring of 2023 soon after it was formed, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its core ever since and has a amused expression when considering the experience.
“There might be a brief moment looking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you think: ‘Well, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Chester had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the challenge of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an F1 team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you won't have the possibility to change cultural approach.”
With each passing day that passes minds are sharper on the looming critical moment in Australia and goals are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon stated this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he thought the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So that we show up and we operate well. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender executing the proper actions on the circuit. When we prove that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Push
In late summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo notable for their vast knowledge in competing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver echoed the mood of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. In my view with this structure, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we can't manage to progress rapidly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in top gear, with personnel now reaching over 400 and scheduled to hit the objective of six hundred rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at Silverstone, the squad are in the midst of finishing an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the center to manufacture the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organization, at odds with the direction in the sport for increased consolidation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred to.
NASA Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” remarked Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in July. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how challenging it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a flat management structure akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of project teams all focusing on distinct elements of the project across a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a procedure where an issue arises and they report it to their manager, that supervisor communicates with a supervisor in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” says the CTO. “Therefore we enable people to handle things directly. Moving away from hierarchical consent for all decisions is far more efficient and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this flexible strategy will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is no little amount riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
