Just over a full year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's most recent entrant for 2026. Establishing the squad from nothing has required a hectic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 converges on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be held in the US, with around 100 days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed project in March 2023 shortly after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its center from that point and has a amused expression when thinking about the journey.
“You might get five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we’ve done in less than three years,’” Chester states. “Then the next minute you consider: ‘Well, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's title-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in command of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has truly matched the challenge of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the corporate entity, GM, into F1.
“Building an Formula One team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you won't have the opportunity to change team culture.”
With each day that elapses minds are increasingly concentrated on the looming decisive point in Australia and goals are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad entering the sport is going to be last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon commented this year and while Chester shared this view he thought the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he says. “So we show up and we operate well. We want to show that we’re a proper team doing the correct procedures on the race track. After we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show progression subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Effort
In the summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a duo notable for their vast knowledge in operating at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver expressed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and it’s going to be probably a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. In my view with this structure, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we can't manage to progress rapidly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in full swing, with employees now up to over 400 and intended to reach the objective of 600 members swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at Silverstone, the team are in the process of building an headquarters at Fishers in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to manufacture the power unit, scheduled for the 2029 season – until then they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex structure, contrary to the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester alluded.
NASA Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” said Lowdon just before the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we recognize how tough it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure similar to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all focusing on different aspects of the program across a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their supervisor, that manager consults a supervisor at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” explains the CTO. “We give authority to team members to take charge. Avoiding management approval for all decisions is much smoother and more rapid.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this agile approach will be proven in the heat of competition next season and there is a significant degree on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
