Approximately twelve months in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the green light as F1's newest participant for 2026. Building the squad from scratch has entailed a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the championship to be staged in the US, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed team in the spring of 2023 soon after it was created, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart from that point and has a amused expression when reflecting on the ride.
“You can have a brief moment looking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in less than three years,’” he says. “And then the next minute you think: ‘Well, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the mission of launching the all-American Cadillac marque, a works entry backed by the owner, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an F1 team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you won't have the possibility to change organizational mindset.”
With every day that goes by minds are increasingly concentrated on the impending decisive point in Australia and goals are being managed.
“You have to assume that any new team joining the grid 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 Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the organization had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “In order that we arrive and we function efficiently. We want to show that this is a professional operation executing the correct procedures on the track. Once we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on improvement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Drive
In August they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo notable for their priceless expertise in performing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Bottas echoed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and we expect most likely a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to stay at the back. 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 up to the pace and taste victory.”
To that end recruitment has been in full swing, with personnel now reaching over 400 and intended to attain the goal of 600 swiftly. In addition to their present headquarters at Silverstone, the squad are in the process of finishing an HQ at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to build the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate organization, at odds with the direction in F1 for more centralization, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Chester referred to.
NASA Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” stated Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how tough it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of project teams all working on various components of the mission at a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a process where an issue arises and they escalate it to their manager, that manager communicates with a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says the CTO. “Therefore we enable team members to take charge. Avoiding managerial sign-off for each action is much smoother and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this agile methodology will be tested in the heat of competition next season and there is no little amount at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
