Just over twelve months in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately given the go-ahead as F1's newest entry for the 2026 season. Building the organization from the ground up has involved a frenetic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport descends on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be hosted 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, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic operation in early 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart ever since and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the experience.
“You can have a short period reflecting at what you’ve done and say: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he says. “But then the very next instant you consider: ‘Well, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's victorious seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical direction at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the mission of bringing the all-American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, GM, into F1.
“Creating an F1 team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you rarely get the chance to change organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that passes minds are sharper on the looming moment of truth in Australia and expectations are being managed.
“You have to assume that any incoming team entering the sport is going to be last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the team had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So we arrive and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender executing the correct procedures on the race track. When we prove that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate improvement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Effort
In late summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem notable for their invaluable experience in operating at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it will likely be probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. In my view with this setup, with this team, these personnel, there’s no reason why we can't manage to advance swiftly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with staff now reaching more than 400 and scheduled to hit the target of six hundred swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at the UK base, the organization are in the process of building an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are constructing the facility to manufacture the 2029 engine, set for the 2029 season – for now they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex structure, contrary to the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester alluded.
Space Mission Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” remarked the team principal shortly before the British Grand Prix in July. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how challenging it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, instead of the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all focusing on different aspects of the project across a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where an issue arises and they report it to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a supervisor at a different location, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” explains Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to handle things directly. Moving away from hierarchical consent for each action is much smoother and quicker.”
The Future
The efficacy of this nimble methodology will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is no little amount on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta
