Just over twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the go-ahead as Formula One’s newest participant for 2026. Constructing the organization from the ground up has required a frenetic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 arrives on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be hosted in the America, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are cognizant there will not be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent project in the spring of 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart since then and gets a knowing grin when thinking about the journey.
“You can have a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Incredible, how impressive what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the next minute you think: ‘Yes, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Task
Chester had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious years of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the task of bringing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a factory team backed by the owner, General Motors, into F1.
“Creating an Formula One team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you don’t get the chance to transform cultural approach.”
With each passing day that elapses thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the approaching moment of truth in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.
“One must presume that any incoming team coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated recently and while Chester shared this view he felt the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “In order that we turn up and we perform competently. We want to show that we are a serious contender doing the right things on the track. Once we prove that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate improvement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Push
In late summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo remarkable for their vast knowledge in competing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the attitude of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We have a massive task to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a difficult start, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I am confident with this setup, with this team, this staff, there’s no reason why we can't manage to progress rapidly to the front and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with staff now reaching over 400 and scheduled to attain the target of 600 swiftly. In addition to their present headquarters at the UK base, the team are in the process of building an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to produce the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex structure, different from the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred.
NASA Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” said Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, instead of the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of project teams all focusing on various components of the mission across a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their manager, that manager talks to a manager at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” says Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to handle things directly. Avoiding hierarchical consent for everything is far more efficient and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this nimble approach will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is no little amount at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
