A little more than twelve months in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's latest entry for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from scratch has entailed a hectic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 arrives on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the season to be held in the America, with around three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed team in the spring of 2023 not long after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart since then and gets a wry smile when considering the journey.
“There might be a short period reflecting at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we’ve done in under three years,’” he notes. “And then the next minute you think: ‘Yeah, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the challenge of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a factory team backed by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an Formula One team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you won't have the opportunity to transform organizational mindset.”
With every day that goes by thoughts are sharper on the impending decisive point in Melbourne and goals are being handled.
“You have to assume that any new team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented recently and while Nick Chester echoed this he thought the team had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we turn up and we operate well. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender doing the right things on the circuit. Once we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show progression subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Drive
In late summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their vast knowledge in performing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Bottas echoed the mood of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We face a mountain of work to do, and we expect probably a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. In my view with this structure, with this group, this staff, it's entirely possible we can't manage to progress rapidly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with personnel now reaching more than 400 and planned to hit the goal of six hundred swiftly. In addition to their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the midst of completing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to produce the power unit, set for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, different from the movement in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester alluded.
Space Mission Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” stated the team principal ahead of the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how tough it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, rather than the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of specialist groups all focusing on various components of the mission at a different facilities.
“When you must follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their manager, that supervisor consults a supervisor at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” says Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to really get on with it. Moving away from hierarchical consent for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this flexible strategy will be tested in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a considerable amount riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta
