A little more than one year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the go-ahead as Formula One’s most recent participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from nothing has entailed a intense pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 arrives on Vegas this race weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the season to be held in the United States, with around a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic team in early 2023 shortly after it was established, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart since then and has a amused expression when reflecting on the experience.
“There might be a short period thinking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Incredible, how impressive what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “And then the next minute you think: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has been quite like the challenge of launching the iconic American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Creating an Formula One team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you won't have the possibility to alter organizational mindset.”
With each day that passes thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the impending critical moment in Melbourne and expectations are being handled.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad coming in is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” the team principal stated earlier this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he believed the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “In order that we turn up and we function efficiently. We want to show that we are a serious contender doing the right things on the track. After we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate improvement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Effort
In late summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a duo remarkable for their invaluable experience in competing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. In my view with this setup, with this team, this staff, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in overdrive, with personnel now up to more than 400 and intended to hit the target of 600 quickly. Complementing their current base at Silverstone, the team are in the process of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are developing the center to build the new engine, planned for 2029 – until then they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate structure, at odds with the trend in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred to.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how tough it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, rather than the traditional management structure, a decentralized management comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all focusing on various components of the program at a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a procedure where a challenge emerges and they report it to their manager, that leader consults a leader in another department, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” notes Nick Chester. “So we empower people to really get on with it. Eliminating hierarchical consent for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this nimble methodology will be proven in the heat of competition next season and there is a significant degree riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
