Approximately twelve months ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the go-ahead as Formula One’s most recent 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 Apollo moon landing. As Formula One descends on Vegas this weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be staged in the United States, with around three months to go before they make their debut for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed operation in the spring of 2023 soon after it was formed, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center since then and gets a knowing grin when considering the journey.
“There might be a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “But then the next minute you realize: ‘Yeah, there is still a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has truly matched the task of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a factory team sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you won't have the opportunity to change team culture.”
With each passing day that elapses focus are more focused on the approaching decisive point in Australia and expectations are being handled.
“One must presume that any incoming team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he believed the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we show up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation performing the correct procedures on the track. After we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate progression from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Effort
In the summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a pair distinguished for their priceless expertise in operating at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Bottas echoed the mood of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. In my view with this structure, with this group, this staff, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”
To that end recruitment has been in top gear, with employees now reaching over 400 and intended to hit the goal of 600 members swiftly. In addition to their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the phase of finishing an headquarters at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are building the center to produce the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, different from the direction in the sport for more centralization, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Chester alluded.
NASA Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” remarked Lowdon ahead of the British GP in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we know how tough it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all tackling distinct elements of the project at a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their team leader, that manager communicates with a supervisor at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” notes Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to take charge. Moving away from management approval for everything is far more efficient and more rapid.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a significant degree riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
