Just over one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the go-ahead as Formula One’s newest participant for the 2026 season. Building the team from nothing has required a frenetic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 converges on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the season finale of the campaign to be hosted in the America, with just over a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed operation in the spring of 2023 soon after it was established, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center from that point and gets a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“You can have a short period reflecting at what you’ve done and go: ‘Wow, how impressive what we have built in less than three years,’” he notes. “Then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yeah, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the challenge of bringing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a works entry sponsored by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Creating an grand prix team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you don’t get the chance to alter cultural approach.”
With every day that elapses thoughts are more focused on the looming moment of truth in the Australian GP and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team coming in is going to be last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal noted this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he thought the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So we show up and we operate well. We want to show that we’re a proper team executing the right things on the race track. When we prove that our credentials are solid, then we want to show improvement after that.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Push
In the summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a pair distinguished for their priceless expertise in operating at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of determined optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a massive task to do, and it’s going to be probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe with this structure, with this team, this staff, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in full swing, with staff now at over 400 and planned to attain the objective of 600 members swiftly. Complementing their current base at Silverstone, the organization are in the process of completing an main base at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to manufacture the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate structure, at odds with the movement in F1 for increased consolidation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester alluded.
Space Mission Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” stated the team principal just before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we know how tough it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a decentralized management akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all working on distinct elements of the project at a different facilities.
“When you must follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they report it to their manager, that manager consults a leader in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “We give authority to people to really get on with it. Eliminating managerial sign-off for all decisions is far more efficient and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this flexible methodology will be tested in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a considerable amount at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their development driver the young American Colton Herta
