A little more than one year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the go-ahead as F1's latest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from the ground up has required a intense operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be hosted in the United States, with around 100 days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent operation in March 2023 shortly after it was established, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart from that point and gets a wry smile when considering the experience.
“There might be a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we’ve done in under three years,’” Chester states. “And then the very next instant you realize: ‘Well, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the task of introducing the iconic American Cadillac name, a works entry backed by the parent company, GM, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you won't have the chance to alter organizational mindset.”
With each day that elapses thoughts are more focused on the impending decisive point in the Australian GP and goals are being handled.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” the team principal stated recently and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the team had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So we arrive and we function efficiently. We want to show that we’re a proper team doing the right things on the track. Once we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we want to show improvement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive
In August they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a duo distinguished for their invaluable experience in operating at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver reflected the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it will likely be probably a tough opening, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I believe given this organization, with this team, these personnel, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To that end hiring has been in top gear, with staff now up to in excess of 400 and scheduled to reach the objective of 600 swiftly. In addition to their existing facility at Silverstone, the team are in the phase of completing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are building the center to produce the power unit, scheduled for the 2029 season – for now they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organization, contrary to the movement in the sport for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, instead of the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of specialist groups all focusing on distinct elements of the program across a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a procedure where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their team leader, that leader talks to a supervisor somewhere else, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” notes Chester. “So we empower staff to take charge. Avoiding hierarchical consent for everything is so much cleaner and faster.”
The Future
The success of this agile strategy will be tested in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a considerable amount riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the young American Colton Herta
