Just over one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's latest participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from scratch has entailed a frenetic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 descends on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the campaign to be hosted in the United States, with around three months to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed project in March 2023 not long after it was established, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its center ever since and has a knowing grin when considering the journey.
“There might be a brief moment looking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we have built in less than three years,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you realize: ‘Well, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical development at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has truly matched the mission of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a works entry sponsored by the parent company, GM, into F1.
“Creating an Formula One team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you won't have the opportunity to change organizational mindset.”
With each day that goes by focus are more focused on the looming critical moment in the Australian GP and targets are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented recently and while Chester shared this view he thought the squad had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation executing the right things on the circuit. When we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Push
In August they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a duo distinguished for their vast knowledge in performing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and we expect almost certainly a tough opening, 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 shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in top gear, with personnel now at over 400 and planned to hit the objective of 600 swiftly. Complementing their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the phase of completing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are building the plant to produce the power unit, planned for 2029 – until then they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex organisation, different from the direction in F1 for greater centralisation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Chester alluded.
NASA Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” stated Lowdon ahead of the British GP in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how tough it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all focusing on distinct elements of the project across a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a protocol where an issue arises and they escalate it to their team leader, that leader consults a leader somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” says the CTO. “So we empower people to take charge. Eliminating hierarchical consent for all decisions is far more efficient and more rapid.”
The Future
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is no little amount at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
