Approximately one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the green light as F1's latest participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from nothing has required a frenetic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be held in the America, with around 100 days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent team in March 2023 not long after it was established, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart from that point and gets a wry smile when thinking about the experience.
“You might get a brief moment looking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we have built in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “But then the following moment you realize: ‘Yeah, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious years of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical direction at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has truly matched the challenge of launching the iconic American Cadillac marque, a works entry backed by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Creating an F1 team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you don’t get the opportunity to change team culture.”
With each passing day that goes by thoughts are sharper on the approaching moment of truth in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad coming in is going to be last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted recently and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the organization had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So we turn up and we operate well. We want to show that we’re a proper team doing the right things on the track. Once we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Effort
In late summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a tandem distinguished for their invaluable experience in operating at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas reflected the mood of determined optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. In my view with this setup, with this group, this staff, there’s no reason why we won't be able to advance swiftly to the front and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with employees now at more than 400 and intended to hit the goal of 600 members quickly. Alongside their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the phase of completing an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to manufacture the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate organization, contrary to the movement in F1 for greater centralisation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester alluded.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” remarked the team principal ahead of the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we recognize how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of specialist groups all focusing on different aspects of the mission at a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a process where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that leader consults a supervisor somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Moving away from managerial sign-off for all decisions is far more efficient and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this agile methodology will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a significant degree riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
