🔗 Share this article

Approximately a full year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the official approval as F1's latest entrant for 2026. Establishing the organization from nothing has involved a intense work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.

The Countdown to Melbourne

At the final race of the championship to be staged in the America, with just over 100 days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.

The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic operation in early 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart from that point and gets a amused expression when thinking about the journey.

“There might be five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he says. “But then the very next instant you think: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”

A One-of-a-Kind Challenge

The CTO had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious years of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical direction at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has quite compared with the mission of introducing the iconic American Cadillac name, a factory team backed by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.

“Establishing 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 established team you won't have the possibility to transform team culture.”

With every day that elapses minds are more focused on the approaching moment of truth in the Australian GP and goals are being set realistically.

“You have to assume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while the CTO echoed this he believed the squad had a reputation to build as well.

“Our primary goal we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “In order that we turn up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender doing the right things on the track. After we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on progression subsequently.”

Racing Talent and Recruitment Drive

In late summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a pair notable for their invaluable experience in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the mood of determined optimism.

“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I believe with this setup, with these individuals, these personnel, there is every reason that we won't be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and achieve good results.”

To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with personnel now up to more than 400 and planned to attain the objective of 600 quickly. Complementing their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the process of completing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are developing the center to produce the power unit, planned for the 2029 season – until then they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organization, contrary to the direction in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester alluded.

NASA Inspiration

“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” said the team principal ahead of the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how difficult it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”

So they have adopted, rather than the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of project teams all focusing on different aspects of the program in a variety of locations.

“In a system where you follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they report it to their supervisor, that supervisor communicates with a leader at a different location, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” explains Chester. “We give authority to staff to really get on with it. Eliminating managerial sign-off for all decisions is far more efficient and more rapid.”

The Future

The success of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the pressure of racing next season and there is a considerable amount riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the young American Colton Herta