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 latest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from scratch has required a intense pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One descends on Las Vegas this weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be hosted in the US, with approximately 100 days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed team in March 2023 soon after it was established, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its center since then and enjoys a wry smile when thinking about the experience.
“There might be a brief moment looking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in less than three years,’” Chester states. “Then the next minute you realize: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Chester achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's victorious years of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the task of introducing the all-American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the parent company, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an F1 team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you don’t get the possibility to transform organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that passes thoughts are more focused on the impending moment of truth in the Australian GP and goals are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad coming in is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” the team principal stated recently and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the team had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we arrive and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender performing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we want to show improvement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Effort
In the summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their invaluable experience in competing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas reflected the mood of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have 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 stay at the back. I am confident with this structure, with this team, these personnel, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in overdrive, with staff now reaching over 400 and planned to reach the target of six hundred swiftly. In addition to their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the phase of completing an HQ at Fishers in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to build the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – until then they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate structure, different from the direction in the sport for increased consolidation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester alluded.
NASA Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” remarked the team principal shortly before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we understand how difficult it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of project teams all tackling various components of the mission across a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they report it to their team leader, that manager consults a manager somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” notes Nick Chester. “So we empower people to handle things directly. Moving away from hierarchical consent for everything is so much cleaner and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this flexible strategy will be tested in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a significant degree riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
