Approximately a full year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the green light as F1's newest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from the ground up has entailed a intense work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One descends on Vegas this weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be staged in the United States, 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 come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent team in March 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart ever since and gets a amused expression when considering the experience.
“There might be a brief moment reflecting at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you think: ‘Yes, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical development at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has truly matched the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a factory team supported by the owner, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Building an F1 team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you won't have the chance to alter organizational mindset.”
With every day that goes by focus are sharper on the approaching decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being handled.
“You have to assume that any new team entering the sport is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated this year and while the CTO echoed this he felt the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “In order that we turn up and we operate well. We want to show that we’re a proper team doing the right things on the track. When we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate progression subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Drive
In the summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for the 2026 season, a pair remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver expressed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to finish last. I am confident with this setup, with this team, these people, there is every reason that we won't be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To that end recruitment has been in overdrive, with staff now up to in excess of 400 and intended to reach the target of six hundred rapidly. Complementing their present headquarters at Silverstone, the organization are in the phase of building an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are developing the plant to manufacture the new engine, set for the 2029 season – for now they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, different from the movement in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO alluded.
Apollo Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” said the team principal just before the British Grand Prix in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how difficult it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. OK, 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 flat management structure similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the mission across a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a process where an issue arises and they escalate it to their team leader, that supervisor consults a manager somewhere else, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” explains Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to take charge. Moving away from managerial sign-off for each action is much smoother and quicker.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this flexible approach will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is no little amount riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
