A little more than one year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the official approval as F1's most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from nothing has entailed a hectic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac are aware time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be hosted in the US, with approximately three months to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed project in the spring of 2023 soon after it was established, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core from that point and has a amused expression when considering the ride.
“There might be a short period thinking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the next minute you realize: ‘Yeah, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical direction at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the all-American Cadillac brand, a works entry backed by the parent company, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an grand prix team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you won't have the possibility to alter cultural approach.”
With each passing day that goes by focus are sharper 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 going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he felt the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we turn up and we perform competently. We want to show that we’re a proper team doing the proper actions on the race track. After we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we will focus on forward movement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Effort
In August they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair remarkable for their priceless expertise in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. In my view with this setup, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in overdrive, with personnel now reaching more than 400 and planned to hit the objective of six hundred swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at the UK base, the team are in the midst of finishing an HQ at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are developing the facility to manufacture the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate organisation, different from the movement in Formula One for more centralization, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in July. “We are pragmatic, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, rather than the traditional management structure, a flat management structure akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of project teams all tackling different aspects of the mission at a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a procedure where an issue arises and they escalate it to their manager, that supervisor talks to a leader at a different location, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” explains the CTO. “So we empower team members to really get on with it. Eliminating managerial sign-off for all decisions is much smoother and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is no little amount at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta
