A little more than twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the go-ahead as F1's latest entry for 2026. Establishing the organization from nothing has required a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One arrives on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be hosted in the America, with just over a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed team in early 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the ride.
“You might get a short period looking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Incredible, how impressive what the team has created in less than three years,’” he says. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Chester had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has truly matched the task of introducing the all-American Cadillac brand, a works entry sponsored by the corporate entity, GM, into F1.
“Establishing an grand prix team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you won't have the possibility to change team culture.”
With each day that elapses minds are more focused on the approaching moment of truth in Australia and expectations are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon stated this year and while the CTO echoed this he believed the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So we show up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender doing the right things on the circuit. Once we prove that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate progression subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Push
In late summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for the 2026 season, a tandem remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Bottas expressed the mood of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a difficult start, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to finish last. I am confident given this organization, with this group, this staff, there is every reason that we won't be able to get relatively quickly to the front and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with personnel now at more than 400 and intended to attain the target of 600 quickly. In addition to their current base at Silverstone, the team are in the phase of completing an headquarters at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to build the new engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate structure, at odds with the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we understand how difficult it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure similar to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all focusing on various components of the mission in a different facilities.
“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their team leader, that supervisor consults a leader in another department, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” notes Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable people to take charge. Eliminating hierarchical consent for all decisions is much smoother and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this agile methodology will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is no little amount riding on this for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
