A little more than one year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the green light as F1's latest entrant for 2026. Building the organization from scratch has entailed a intense operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be hosted in the US, with approximately a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed team in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart ever since and has a wry smile when thinking about the journey.
“There might be a brief moment thinking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in under three years,’” Chester states. “But then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's title-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical development at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the iconic American Cadillac name, a works entry backed by the owner, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an grand prix team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you won't have the chance to alter organizational mindset.”
With every day that goes by minds are sharper on the looming moment of truth in Melbourne and goals are being handled.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated this year and while the CTO echoed this he felt the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So we arrive and we function efficiently. We want to show that we’re a proper team doing the proper actions on the track. When we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we want to show forward movement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Push
In late summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he said. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and we expect probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I am confident given this organization, with this group, this staff, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in overdrive, with personnel now up to in excess of 400 and intended to reach the goal of 600 members rapidly. Complementing their present headquarters at the UK base, the organization are in the midst of building an headquarters at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to manufacture the new engine, set for the 2029 season – for now they will use Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organisation, different from the direction in Formula One for more centralization, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Chester alluded.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how challenging it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a range of project teams all working on different aspects of the program in a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a process where an issue arises and they escalate it to their supervisor, that leader consults a supervisor in another department, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” explains Chester. “So we empower people to really get on with it. Eliminating managerial sign-off for everything is much smoother and more rapid.”
The Future
The success of this nimble strategy will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a significant degree riding on this for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
