A little more than one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the go-ahead as F1's newest entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from the ground up has required a hectic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the campaign to be held in the US, with around 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic operation in early 2023 shortly after it was created, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center ever since and enjoys a amused expression when thinking about the ride.
“You might get five minutes reflecting at what you’ve done and say: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the next minute you realize: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
The CTO had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has truly matched the task of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, GM, into F1.
“Building an Formula One team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you won't have the chance to transform cultural approach.”
With each passing day that passes minds are more focused on the looming decisive point in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.
“You have to assume that any new team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” the team principal commented this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he thought the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we should be there,” he says. “So that we turn up and we operate well. We want to show that this is a professional operation executing the proper actions on the race track. Once we prove that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate improvement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Drive
In August they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a pair remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Bottas expressed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be most likely a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I believe with this setup, with this group, this staff, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to the front and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with staff now up to more than 400 and planned to attain the objective of 600 members quickly. In addition to their current base at Silverstone, the squad are in the midst of finishing an HQ at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the new engine, set for the 2029 season – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex organisation, contrary to the trend in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred.
NASA Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” stated the team principal ahead of the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we recognize how tough it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all focusing on various components of the project across a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a process where an issue arises and they escalate it to their manager, that manager talks to a supervisor in another department, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” says Chester. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Avoiding hierarchical consent for each action is far more efficient and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this agile strategy will be proven in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a considerable amount riding on this for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
