A little more than a full year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the green light as the world of Formula One's newest entry for the 2026 season. Building the organization from nothing has required a hectic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the season finale of the campaign to be held in the United States, with around 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 made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent project in the spring of 2023 soon after it was formed, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart from that point and enjoys a knowing grin when thinking about the journey.
“You can have five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in less than three years,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you consider: ‘Well, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
The CTO had success at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the task of bringing the all-American Cadillac brand, a works entry sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Establishing an F1 team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you won't have the opportunity to transform organizational mindset.”
With every day that passes focus are increasingly concentrated on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any incoming team coming in is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he felt the organization had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So we show up and we operate well. We want to show that we’re a proper team doing the right things on the track. When we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on progression from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive
In August they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a pair notable for their priceless expertise in operating at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver expressed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and we expect most likely a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. In my view given this organization, with this group, this staff, there is every reason that we won't be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in top gear, with staff now reaching more than 400 and scheduled to hit the target of 600 members quickly. Complementing their existing facility at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of building an headquarters at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to manufacture the power unit, planned for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a intricate structure, contrary to the movement in the sport for more centralization, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred to.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” stated Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we recognize how tough it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all focusing on distinct elements of the mission in a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where an issue arises and they report it to their team leader, that supervisor communicates with a manager at a different location, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” explains Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to handle things directly. Avoiding management approval for everything is far more efficient and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is no little amount on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
