Approximately twelve months previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the official approval as F1's latest entry for 2026. Building the team from the ground up has involved a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As Formula One arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be held in the America, with around 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic project in the spring of 2023 not long after it was established, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core ever since and enjoys a wry smile when considering the experience.
“There might be five minutes looking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what the team has created in under three years,’” he notes. “Then the next minute you think: ‘Well, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the mission of launching the all-American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Building an F1 team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you don’t get the possibility to change organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that passes minds are sharper on the approaching decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.
“You have to assume that any incoming team entering the sport is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon stated earlier this year and while the CTO shared this view he believed the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So we turn up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender performing the correct procedures on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Drive
In the summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo remarkable for their vast knowledge in performing at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, this staff, it's entirely possible we won't be able to advance swiftly to the front and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with personnel now up to over 400 and planned to reach the target of six hundred swiftly. In addition to their existing facility at Silverstone, the team are in the midst of finishing an main base at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are building the facility to build the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the movement in F1 for more centralization, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which the CTO alluded.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” stated Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the project at a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a protocol where an issue arises and they escalate it to their manager, that leader consults a supervisor somewhere else, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” says the CTO. “Therefore we enable people to really get on with it. Moving away from managerial sign-off for everything is much smoother and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be proven in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a significant degree at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
