Just over one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the green light as F1's latest entry for the 2026 season. Building the organization from nothing has required a frenetic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 converges on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be staged in the United States, with approximately a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic project in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was established, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center ever since and enjoys a wry smile when reflecting on the experience.
“You might get a short period thinking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we’ve done in less than three years,’” Chester states. “But then the next minute you think: ‘Yeah, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious years of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical development at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the challenge of bringing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an Formula One team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you won't have the possibility to transform cultural approach.”
With each day that passes focus are sharper on the impending critical moment in the Australian GP and goals are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any incoming team entering the sport 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 Nick Chester echoed this he thought the team had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we turn up and we operate well. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation performing the correct procedures on the circuit. Once we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate progression after that.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Drive
In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a pair remarkable for their invaluable experience in operating at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We face a mountain of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I am confident given this organization, with this team, these personnel, there is every reason that we won't be able to progress rapidly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with staff now reaching in excess of 400 and scheduled to hit the objective of 600 members swiftly. Alongside their existing facility at the UK base, the organization are in the process of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are developing the center to manufacture the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organization, different from the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester alluded.
Space Mission Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” stated Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how challenging it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a decentralized management comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all tackling distinct elements of the program at a different facilities.
“When you must follow a process where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their supervisor, that manager consults a supervisor in another department, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” notes Chester. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Moving away from managerial sign-off for all decisions is far more efficient and faster.”
The Future
The success of this nimble strategy will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a significant degree riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
