Approximately twelve months in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the official approval as Formula One’s newest participant for the 2026 season. Building the organization from scratch has involved a frenetic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the campaign to be hosted in the US, with approximately a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly 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, came aboard the newly formed operation in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart from that point and enjoys a wry smile when considering the experience.
“There might be five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Wow, how impressive what we have built in less than three years,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in control of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the task of bringing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a factory team backed by the corporate entity, GM, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you don’t get the chance to transform team culture.”
With every day that goes by focus are more focused on the impending critical moment in Australia and targets are being handled.
“You have to assume that any incoming team coming in is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” the team principal stated this year and while the CTO shared this view he believed the team had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So we show up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team executing the proper actions on the race track. When we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Push
In late summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a duo distinguished for their vast knowledge in operating at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to finish last. In my view given this organization, with this team, these people, there is every reason that we won't be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in full swing, with staff now reaching in excess of 400 and intended to attain the objective of 600 members swiftly. Alongside their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the phase of finishing an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to build the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will run power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex organisation, at odds with the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred to.
NASA Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” remarked the team principal just before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we recognize how tough it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all working on distinct elements of the program in a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they report it to their supervisor, that supervisor consults a manager in another department, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” notes the CTO. “Therefore we enable team members to take charge. Moving away from management approval for each action is far more efficient and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this flexible approach will be proven in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
