Approximately one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the green light as F1's latest participant for the 2026 season. Building the organization from scratch has involved a intense pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the season finale of the championship to be held in the United States, with just over three months to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed project in the spring of 2023 soon after it was created, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core from that point and gets a knowing grin when considering the experience.
“You can have a brief moment thinking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Amazing, how impressive what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “Then the very next instant you think: ‘Yeah, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the task of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a factory team backed by the owner, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Building an grand prix team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you won't have the opportunity to transform organizational mindset.”
With every day that elapses thoughts are more focused on the looming decisive point in Melbourne and targets are being handled.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” the team principal commented this year and while the CTO echoed this he thought the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So we turn up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation executing the proper actions on the circuit. When we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on improvement after that.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Push
In the summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their pilots for the 2026 season, a pair remarkable for their vast knowledge in operating at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and we expect most likely a difficult start, because it is F1. But we’re not there to finish last. I believe given this organization, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we won't be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in top gear, with employees now at more than 400 and planned to reach the target of six hundred quickly. In addition to their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of building an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are building the plant to manufacture the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will use Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex structure, different from the movement in F1 for increased consolidation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred to.
Apollo Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” remarked the team principal just before the British GP in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how challenging it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, rather than the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of NASA's, where there were a range of project teams all focusing on various components of the project at a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a process where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their supervisor, that manager consults a supervisor in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” notes Chester. “So we empower team members to take charge. Moving away from management approval for each action is far more efficient and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this nimble approach will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a considerable amount at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
