Approximately twelve months in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last given the green light as Formula One’s newest entry for 2026. Building the organization from nothing has required a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the season finale of the season to be hosted in the US, with just over three months to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic team in the spring of 2023 soon after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart ever since and has a amused expression when considering the journey.
“There might be a short period reflecting at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in less than three years,’” he notes. “Then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yeah, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
The CTO had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has been quite like the challenge of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a factory team sponsored by the parent company, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an Formula One team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you won't have the possibility to alter cultural approach.”
With each passing day that passes thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the impending decisive point in Melbourne and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon noted earlier this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he believed the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “In order that we turn up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender executing the right things on the race track. When we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive
In the summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a duo distinguished for their invaluable experience in performing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas expressed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe with this setup, with these individuals, these people, there’s no reason why we won't be able to progress rapidly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in full swing, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and scheduled to attain the target of 600 members rapidly. Complementing their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the midst of completing an main base at Fishers in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are developing the center to produce the new engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – for now they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, different from the trend in F1 for increased consolidation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” said the team principal ahead of the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we know how tough it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a flat management structure akin to that of NASA's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all focusing on various components of the program at a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their manager, that leader communicates with a leader somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” says Nick Chester. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Avoiding management approval for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this agile approach will be evaluated in the pressure of racing next season and there is no little amount at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
