A little more than a full year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last granted the official approval as the world of Formula One's most recent participant for 2026. Building the organization from the ground up has entailed a frenetic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One arrives on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be held in the US, with approximately a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic project in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core since then and enjoys a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“You might get five minutes reflecting at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we’ve done in less than three years,’” Chester states. “But then the next minute you think: ‘Well, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Chester achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the task of introducing the all-American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the owner, GM, into Formula One.
“Creating an grand prix team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you don’t get the possibility to alter team culture.”
With every day that goes by thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the approaching critical moment in Melbourne and expectations are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team coming in is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we turn up and we operate well. We want to show that this is a professional operation doing the right things on the track. After we prove that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate improvement after that.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Push
In late summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their vast knowledge in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver reflected the mood of combative optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and we expect most likely a difficult start, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe with this structure, with this group, these personnel, there’s no reason why we can't manage to get relatively quickly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in full swing, with personnel now at over 400 and scheduled to hit the target of 600 quickly. Complementing their present headquarters at the UK base, the team are in the midst of finishing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are building the plant to produce the power unit, set for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organization, contrary to the trend in the sport for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred to.
Apollo Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” remarked the team principal just before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we know how tough it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, instead of the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all focusing on different aspects of the project across a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their team leader, that manager talks to a leader somewhere else, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” notes Chester. “We give authority to people to handle things directly. Eliminating managerial sign-off for all decisions is much smoother and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this flexible methodology will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a considerable amount on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
