Just over twelve months in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the official approval as F1's most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from nothing has involved a hectic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport arrives on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac understand time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be held in the America, with approximately three months to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic project in the spring of 2023 not long after it was established, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center ever since and enjoys a knowing grin when considering the ride.
“There might be a brief moment looking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Wow, how impressive what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “Then the next minute you consider: ‘Yeah, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in Alonso's victorious years of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical development at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac brand, a works entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an Formula One team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you don’t get the opportunity to transform organizational mindset.”
With each day that passes focus are sharper on the impending critical moment in the Australian GP and expectations are being handled.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal noted recently and while Chester shared this view he believed the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we show up and we function efficiently. We want to show that this is a professional operation executing the right things on the circuit. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate improvement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Push
In late summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair distinguished for their vast knowledge in competing at the front in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the mood of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he said. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to finish last. I believe given this organization, with this team, these people, there is every reason that we won't be able to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with personnel now up to over 400 and intended to hit the target of six hundred quickly. In addition to their present headquarters at Silverstone, the squad are in the process of completing an HQ at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are building the center to build the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate structure, at odds with the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester alluded.
Space Mission Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” said Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in July. “We are pragmatic, we understand how challenging it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, rather than the traditional management structure, a decentralized management similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of specialist groups all tackling different aspects of the program in a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a protocol where someone has a problem and they report it to their team leader, that manager consults a supervisor somewhere else, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” explains the CTO. “Therefore we enable staff to handle things directly. Moving away from management approval for each action is so much cleaner and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this nimble strategy will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
