Approximately a full year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the green light as the world of Formula One's latest entrant for the 2026 season. Building the organization from nothing has required a frenetic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the final race of the championship to be held in the America, with just over 100 days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic team in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart since then and has a wry smile when reflecting on the ride.
“You can have a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in less than three years,’” Chester states. “Then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in control of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has quite compared with the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a factory team sponsored by the owner, General Motors, into F1.
“Building an F1 team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you don’t get the opportunity to transform organizational mindset.”
With every day that goes by focus are more focused on the impending critical moment in Melbourne and targets are being managed.
“One must presume that any incoming team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal stated recently and while the CTO echoed this he believed the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he says. “So that we arrive and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender performing the right things on the race track. Once we prove that our credentials are solid, then we want to show progression from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Effort
In late summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a tandem 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 attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be probably a difficult start, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I am confident given this organization, with this team, these people, it's entirely possible we can't manage to get relatively quickly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in top gear, with personnel now reaching in excess of 400 and planned to hit the goal of 600 members swiftly. Alongside their existing facility at the UK base, the organization are in the midst of completing an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are developing the center to manufacture the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, different from the movement in the sport for increased consolidation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
Apollo Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” said the team principal just before the British GP in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how challenging it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, instead of the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of project teams all focusing on different aspects of the mission in a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a protocol where an issue arises and they raise it up to their manager, that leader talks to a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” notes Chester. “Therefore we enable people to handle things directly. Eliminating managerial sign-off for all decisions is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
The Future
The success of this agile methodology will be tested in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a considerable amount on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
