Just over one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the green light as F1's newest entry for the 2026 season. Building the organization from the ground up has required a frenetic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be hosted in the United States, with approximately three months to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed operation in the spring of 2023 not long after it was created, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart since then and has a amused expression when reflecting on the journey.
“You can have a brief moment thinking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Wow, what an achievement what the team has created in under three years,’” he says. “Then the very next instant you think: ‘Yes, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Task
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical development at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the all-American Cadillac name, a factory team backed by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Creating an grand prix team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you don’t get the possibility to change cultural approach.”
With each passing day that goes by focus are more focused on the approaching critical moment in the Australian GP and expectations are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team joining the grid is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal noted this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he believed the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So that we show up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender executing the right things on the race track. When we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate progression from there on.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Drive
In late summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a pair distinguished for their vast knowledge in operating at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas expressed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a tough opening, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I am confident with this structure, with this group, this staff, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in overdrive, with staff now at more than 400 and intended to attain the goal of 600 members swiftly. In addition to their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the process of building an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to manufacture the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will use Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, contrary to the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Chester referred to.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” remarked Lowdon ahead of the British GP in July. “We are pragmatic, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, instead of the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all tackling distinct elements of the program at a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a process where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their team leader, that leader communicates with a manager at a different location, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” notes Chester. “So we empower people to take charge. Eliminating management approval for each action is far more efficient and quicker.”
The Future
The success of this flexible strategy will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a considerable amount at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
