Just over one year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the go-ahead as Formula One’s latest entry for 2026. Constructing the team from nothing has entailed a frenetic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be staged in the America, with just over 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are cognizant there will not be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent team in March 2023 shortly after it was established, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its core since then and enjoys a amused expression when reflecting on the ride.
“You can have a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he notes. “But then the following moment you consider: ‘Yes, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has been quite like the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a factory team backed by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an F1 team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you won't have the possibility to alter organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that goes by minds are more focused on the approaching decisive point in Australia and expectations are being handled.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad coming in is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented this year and while the CTO shared this view he felt the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “In order that we turn up and we function efficiently. We want to show that we are a serious contender doing the correct procedures on the race track. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Push
In August they signed Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a pair notable for their invaluable experience in operating at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be probably a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I believe with this setup, with these individuals, this staff, there’s no reason why we can't manage to advance swiftly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in full swing, with personnel now up to more than 400 and scheduled to hit the goal of six hundred quickly. Complementing their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the phase of building an main base at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are building the plant to build the new engine, planned for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex structure, different from the movement in the sport for increased consolidation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred to.
Apollo Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” said the team principal just before the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we recognize how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of project teams all working on various components of the mission in a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a process where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor communicates with a leader in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” says Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to take charge. Eliminating management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this agile approach will be proven in the pressure of racing next season and there is no little amount at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
