Approximately twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the official approval as the world of Formula One's latest participant for 2026. Building the team from scratch has entailed a frenetic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be hosted in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent operation in early 2023 shortly after it was established, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and has a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“You might get five minutes looking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in less than three years,’” Chester states. “And then the next minute you think: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Chester achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical development at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the task of bringing the iconic American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Creating an grand prix team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the opportunity to transform organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that passes thoughts are more focused on the looming decisive point in Australia and goals are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any new team coming in is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” the team principal stated earlier this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he felt the organization had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we turn up and we function efficiently. We want to show that this is a professional operation doing the correct procedures on the circuit. After we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Push
In August they contracted Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a tandem notable for their vast knowledge in competing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas expressed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We face a mountain of work to do, and we expect probably a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. In my view given this organization, with these individuals, these personnel, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to the front and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with employees now up to over 400 and intended to hit the goal of 600 members rapidly. In addition to their present headquarters at Silverstone, the organization are in the phase of completing an HQ at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to build the power unit, planned for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex organization, at odds with the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester alluded.
Apollo Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” stated Lowdon ahead of the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how tough it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, rather than the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management akin to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of project teams all focusing on various components of the mission in a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where an issue arises and they report it to their team leader, that leader communicates with a supervisor at a different location, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” notes the CTO. “So we empower team members to handle things directly. Eliminating hierarchical consent for everything is far more efficient and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this agile strategy will be proven in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is no little amount riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
