Just over one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the green light as the world of Formula One's newest participant for the 2026 season. Building the squad from the ground up has required a frenetic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be staged in the United States, with just over three months to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent project in early 2023 shortly after it was established, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center since then and gets a wry smile when reflecting on the experience.
“You can have a short period reflecting at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “And then the following moment you consider: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
The CTO had success at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a factory team sponsored by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Establishing an Formula One team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you won't have the chance to alter organizational mindset.”
With every day that goes by focus are more focused on the looming moment of truth in Australia and expectations are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any new team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal noted recently and while the CTO shared this view he felt the organization had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that we’re a proper team executing the correct procedures on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on improvement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Push
In late summer they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a duo distinguished for their invaluable experience in operating at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a massive task to do, and it will likely be probably a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I am confident with this setup, with this team, this staff, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with personnel now at more than 400 and planned to attain the target of six hundred swiftly. Alongside their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the process of finishing an HQ at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are developing the plant to build the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, at odds with the direction in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred to.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” said the team principal ahead of the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, 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 conventional chain of command, a decentralized management similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of project teams all working on distinct elements of the mission at a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where an issue arises and they report it to their manager, that leader talks to a leader at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” explains the CTO. “We give authority to people to really get on with it. Moving away from management approval for each action is so much cleaner and quicker.”
The Future
The success of this flexible approach will be evaluated in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is no little amount on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
