Approximately twelve months previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the go-ahead as F1's most recent entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from the ground up has involved a frenetic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport arrives on Vegas this weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be hosted in the United States, with around 100 days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic team in March 2023 not long after it was formed, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its center since then and enjoys a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“There might be a short period looking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in under three years,’” he says. “And then the very next instant you realize: ‘Well, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
Chester achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical development at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has been quite like the task of bringing the all-American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Building an F1 team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you rarely get the opportunity to alter team culture.”
With each passing day that passes focus are sharper on the looming moment of truth in Melbourne and targets are being managed.
“You have to assume that any new team entering the sport is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented recently and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we turn up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation doing the proper actions on the race track. When we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push
In August they recruited Sergio Perez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their vast knowledge in operating at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the mood of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and we expect probably a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. I believe with this setup, with this group, these people, there is every reason that we won't be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with employees now at more than 400 and intended to hit the objective of six hundred rapidly. Complementing their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the process of building an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to build the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organization, at odds with the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred.
NASA Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” stated Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how tough it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, instead of the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the project in a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their manager, that supervisor communicates with a manager in another department, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” explains Chester. “So we empower staff to handle things directly. Moving away from managerial sign-off for all decisions is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this agile strategy will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a considerable amount at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
