A little more than one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the green light as the world of Formula One's latest entrant for 2026. Establishing the organization from scratch has involved a frenetic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be staged in the America, with just over a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic team in the spring of 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and enjoys a knowing grin when thinking about the experience.
“You might get a short period reflecting at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in under three years,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you consider: ‘Yes, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Chester achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in charge of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac marque, a factory team backed by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Building an Formula One team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the opportunity to alter team culture.”
With each day that goes by thoughts are sharper on the approaching moment of truth in the Australian GP and targets are being handled.
“You have to assume 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 noted recently and while Nick Chester shared this view he felt the squad 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 arrive and we function efficiently. We want to show that we’re a proper team doing the proper actions on the race track. After we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on improvement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Drive
In late summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their vast knowledge in operating at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We have a massive task to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. In my view given this organization, with these individuals, these people, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with employees now at in excess of 400 and planned to reach the goal of 600 members rapidly. Complementing their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the midst of building an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to build the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the movement in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred to.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” remarked Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how difficult it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure similar to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all focusing on distinct elements of the project at a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their team leader, that manager consults a leader in another department, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” explains Nick Chester. “So we empower team members to take charge. Eliminating management approval for everything is so much cleaner and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this flexible strategy will be evaluated in the heat of competition next season and there is a significant degree riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
