A little more than one year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the official approval as the world of Formula One's newest entry for the 2026 season. Building the team from the ground up has entailed a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac understand time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be held in the United States, with around 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 task, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent operation in the spring of 2023 not long after it was created, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center since then and enjoys a amused expression when reflecting on the experience.
“You might get a short period reflecting at what you’ve done and go: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what the team has created in under three years,’” Chester states. “And then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical direction at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the mission of introducing the all-American Cadillac marque, a works entry sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an F1 team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you rarely get the opportunity to change organizational mindset.”
With each day that elapses thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the looming critical moment in the Australian GP and goals are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any new team coming in is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated recently and while Nick Chester echoed this he believed the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we show up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender doing the correct procedures on the track. Once we prove that we’re really credible, then we want to show forward movement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Push
In the summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their priceless expertise in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver echoed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. I am confident with this setup, with these individuals, these people, it's entirely possible we can't manage to progress rapidly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To that end recruitment has been in full swing, with employees now reaching more than 400 and intended to hit the objective of six hundred rapidly. Alongside their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the process of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are building the plant to produce the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will use power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a complex structure, at odds with the movement in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred to.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” stated Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of project teams all working on different aspects of the mission across a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a process where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their supervisor, that leader communicates with a manager at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” notes Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to handle things directly. Eliminating managerial sign-off for everything is much smoother and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this nimble strategy will be proven in the heat of competition next season and there is a considerable amount riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
