A little more than twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the green light as the world of Formula One's latest entry for 2026. Constructing the organization from nothing has involved a frenetic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 descends on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be held in the America, with approximately 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent team in March 2023 soon after it was created, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center since then and gets a wry smile when reflecting on the experience.
“There might be five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in under three years,’” he notes. “Then the following moment you think: ‘Well, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical development at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the challenge of bringing the all-American Cadillac marque, a works entry sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Creating an F1 team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you rarely get the possibility to alter organizational mindset.”
With every day that elapses focus are more focused on the looming moment of truth in Australia and goals are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any new team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon commented this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he felt the organization had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “In order that we show up and we function efficiently. We want to show that we are a serious contender executing the proper actions on the track. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we will focus on improvement after that.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Effort
In the summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem notable for their vast knowledge in competing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas expressed the mood of combative optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and we expect probably a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to finish last. In my view given this organization, with this group, this staff, there’s no reason why we won't be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To that end recruitment has been in full swing, with employees now up to over 400 and scheduled to reach the target of six hundred quickly. Alongside their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the phase of completing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to produce the new engine, set for 2029 – until then they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex structure, contrary to the movement in F1 for more centralization, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Chester alluded.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” stated the team principal just before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we know how difficult it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, instead of the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of project teams all focusing on various components of the project in a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a process where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their supervisor, that leader communicates with a manager somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” explains the CTO. “Therefore we enable team members to take charge. Moving away from management approval for everything is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this agile approach will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a considerable amount at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
