Just over a full year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the green light as Formula One’s newest entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from scratch has entailed a frenetic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As the sport descends on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be staged in the United States, with just over three months to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent operation in early 2023 not long after it was formed, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart from that point and has a knowing grin when thinking about the experience.
“There might be a short period thinking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in less than three years,’” Chester states. “But then the very next instant you consider: ‘Well, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
The CTO had success at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has been quite like the task of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a factory team sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an grand prix team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you won't have the opportunity to alter organizational mindset.”
With every day that goes by focus are sharper on the looming moment of truth in Melbourne and expectations are being handled.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he felt the team had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we turn up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation performing the right things on the circuit. After we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push
In August they signed Checo Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a tandem remarkable for their vast knowledge in performing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be probably a difficult start, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to finish last. I am confident given this organization, with this team, these people, it's entirely possible we shouldn’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 up to in excess of 400 and intended to hit the target of 600 members quickly. In addition to their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the process of completing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are developing the facility to build the new engine, planned for 2029 – until then they will use Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the movement in F1 for more centralization, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred to.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” stated Lowdon just before the British GP in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we understand how challenging it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a range of specialist groups all focusing on different aspects of the program in a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a process where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a supervisor in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” says Chester. “Therefore we enable people to really get on with it. Eliminating management approval for all decisions is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
The Future
The efficacy of this flexible approach will be evaluated in the heat of competition next season and there is a considerable amount on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
