Just over one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's newest entry for 2026. Establishing the team from scratch has entailed a hectic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 descends on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the final race of the season to be hosted in the United States, with just over 100 days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed project in early 2023 not long after it was formed, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart ever since and enjoys a amused expression when thinking about the ride.
“You might get a short period thinking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we have built in less than three years,’” he notes. “And then the following moment you realize: ‘Yes, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in command of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has truly matched the task of bringing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a works entry supported by the owner, General Motors, into F1.
“Establishing an Formula One team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you won't have the possibility to transform organizational mindset.”
With each day that passes focus are more focused on the impending critical moment in Melbourne and goals are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated recently and while Nick Chester echoed this he believed the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So we show up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation doing the right things on the race track. After we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate progression subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Push
In late summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for the 2026 season, a tandem notable for their invaluable experience in competing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We have a massive task to do, and it’s going to be probably a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to finish last. In my view with this structure, with these individuals, this staff, there is every reason that we can't manage to get relatively quickly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with employees now up to more than 400 and intended to reach the goal of 600 members swiftly. Complementing their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are building the center to produce the power unit, set for 2029 – until then they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, at odds with the trend in the sport for increased consolidation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Chester referred.
Apollo Model
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Graeme Lowdon just before the British GP in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we know how challenging it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management akin to that of NASA's, where there were a range of project teams all tackling different aspects of the mission in a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where an issue arises and they raise it up to their supervisor, that manager talks to a manager at a different location, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” says the CTO. “Therefore we enable staff to take charge. Avoiding management approval for each action is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this agile strategy will be tested in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a considerable amount at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
