Just over twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the official approval as F1's latest entry for 2026. Building the organization from nothing has required a frenetic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be held in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed operation in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was created, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core ever since and has a knowing grin when reflecting on the ride.
“You can have a brief moment looking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in less than three years,’” Chester states. “But then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yes, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Chester achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the mission of launching the all-American Cadillac name, a works entry backed by the parent company, GM, into F1.
“Establishing an Formula One team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you rarely get the chance to change team culture.”
With every day that elapses minds are more focused on the approaching moment of truth in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.
“One must presume that any new team entering the sport is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he felt the organization had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So that we turn up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation doing the correct procedures on the race track. When we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show forward movement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Effort
In the summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their vast knowledge in performing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a tough opening, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I am confident given this organization, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we can't manage to advance swiftly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To that end recruitment has been in overdrive, with personnel now up to over 400 and scheduled to reach the goal of 600 swiftly. Alongside their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the phase of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are developing the facility to build the power unit, planned for the 2029 season – for now they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organization, at odds with the movement in the sport for more centralization, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which the CTO alluded.
Space Mission Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” said the team principal shortly before the British GP in July. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how tough it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of project teams all working on various components of the mission at a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where an issue arises and they raise it up to their team leader, that leader communicates with a leader at a different location, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” notes the CTO. “So we empower people to really get on with it. Avoiding hierarchical consent for everything is much smoother and quicker.”
The Future
The success of this agile approach will be tested in the heat of competition next season and there is no little amount riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
