Just over a full year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the green light as Formula One’s most recent entrant for 2026. Constructing the squad from scratch has involved a hectic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As the sport descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac understand time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be hosted in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed operation in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was created, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core since then and has a knowing grin when thinking about the journey.
“There might be a brief moment reflecting at what you’ve done and go: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in under three years,’” he says. “Then the following moment you consider: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's victorious seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical direction at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the task of bringing the all-American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the parent company, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an F1 team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you don’t get the chance to alter organizational mindset.”
With every day that passes minds are sharper on the looming decisive point in Australia and targets are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any new team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal stated this year and while Chester echoed this he thought the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he says. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender doing the proper actions on the track. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Drive
In late summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a pair remarkable for their invaluable experience in competing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver expressed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. In my view with this structure, with these individuals, this staff, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and intended to hit the objective of 600 quickly. Complementing their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the midst of building an headquarters at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are developing the facility to manufacture the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, contrary to the trend in F1 for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which the CTO alluded.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” said the team principal shortly before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how tough it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a range of specialist groups all focusing on various components of the project in a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their team leader, that supervisor communicates with a supervisor in another department, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” explains Chester. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Moving away from managerial sign-off for each action is so much cleaner and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this agile approach will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is no little amount riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
