Just over one year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the green light as Formula One’s most recent participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from the ground up has required a frenetic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport arrives on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be hosted in the US, with just over a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed operation in early 2023 soon after it was established, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its core since then and gets a amused expression when considering the experience.
“You might get a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we’ve done in under three years,’” he notes. “But then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the task of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a works entry backed by the owner, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an grand prix team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you rarely get the opportunity to change organizational mindset.”
With each day that goes by focus are more focused on the approaching critical moment in Melbourne and expectations are being set realistically.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he thought the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So that we arrive and we operate well. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation doing the right things on the circuit. After we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate improvement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Push
In August they contracted Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair distinguished for their priceless expertise in performing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver expressed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be most likely a difficult start, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I believe given this organization, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we won't be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in top gear, with employees now up to more than 400 and planned to attain the goal of 600 members quickly. In addition to their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the process of finishing an main base at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to build the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will use Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate structure, different from the trend in the sport for increased consolidation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred.
Space Mission Model
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” stated the team principal just before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how difficult it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all tackling various components of the mission across a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they report it to their manager, that manager talks to a leader in another department, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” explains the CTO. “So we empower team members to handle things directly. Moving away from hierarchical consent for everything is so much cleaner and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this nimble methodology will be proven in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a significant degree riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
