A little more than twelve months in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the official approval as the world of Formula One's newest entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from scratch has involved a hectic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the season finale of the season to be staged in the America, with approximately three months to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent operation in March 2023 shortly after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its core ever since and gets a knowing grin when thinking about the experience.
“There might be five minutes looking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in less than three years,’” he says. “But then the very next instant you consider: ‘Well, we still have a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in Alonso's title-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical direction at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the task of bringing the all-American Cadillac brand, a works entry backed by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Creating an F1 team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you rarely get the opportunity to change organizational mindset.”
With each day that passes thoughts are more focused on the looming moment of truth in Australia and targets are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad entering the sport is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted earlier this year and while the CTO echoed this he believed the team had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we turn up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation performing the correct procedures on the track. When we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we want to show progression subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Drive
In the summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the mood of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it will likely be most likely a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. In my view with this setup, with these individuals, this staff, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in top gear, with staff now up to more than 400 and planned to reach the target of 600 members rapidly. In addition to their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are developing the center to manufacture the power unit, scheduled for the 2029 season – until then they will use Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a intricate organisation, at odds with the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred.
NASA Model
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” stated Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management akin to that of NASA's, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on various components of the program at a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a process where an issue arises and they raise it up to their manager, that supervisor communicates with a leader somewhere else, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” notes Chester. “Therefore we enable people to handle things directly. Avoiding hierarchical consent for everything is much smoother and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this nimble approach will be evaluated in the pressure of racing next season and there is a considerable amount riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta
