Approximately a full year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the green light as F1's latest entry for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from nothing has involved a frenetic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac know the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the season finale of the campaign to be hosted in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic team in early 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart ever since and has a wry smile when thinking about the experience.
“You can have five minutes reflecting at what you’ve done and say: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in less than three years,’” he notes. “And then the following moment you consider: ‘Yes, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in charge of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a factory team backed by the corporate entity, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an F1 team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you don’t get the chance to change organizational mindset.”
With each day that passes focus are more focused on the looming critical moment in Australia and goals are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad entering the sport is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he thought the team had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “In order that we arrive and we operate well. We want to show that this is a professional operation executing the correct procedures on the race track. After we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate improvement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Push
In late summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair remarkable for their priceless expertise in competing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a tough opening, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I am confident with this structure, with this team, these people, there is every reason that we can't manage to get relatively quickly to the front and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with staff now reaching in excess of 400 and intended to reach the goal of 600 members quickly. Alongside their current base at the UK base, the team are in the phase of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to build the 2029 engine, set for the 2029 season – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred to.
Space Mission Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” said Graeme Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how challenging it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure akin to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of project teams all working on different aspects of the project at a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their supervisor, that leader communicates with a manager at a different location, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” says the CTO. “So we empower team members to take charge. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is much smoother and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this flexible approach will be tested in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
