Approximately twelve months previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the official approval as the world of Formula One's latest entry for 2026. Constructing the organization from the ground up has entailed a hectic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the campaign to be staged in the US, with just over three months to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in early 2023 soon after it was established, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart since then and has a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“You might get a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Wow, how impressive what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he says. “And then the following moment you realize: ‘Well, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Chester achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's victorious campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac name, a factory team sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Building an grand prix team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you don’t get the chance to change organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that passes thoughts are more focused on the looming critical moment in Melbourne and goals are being managed.
“One must presume that any new team coming in is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he believed the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So we turn up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender performing the correct procedures on the track. After we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate improvement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Effort
In August they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for the 2026 season, a tandem remarkable for their invaluable experience in competing at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Bottas echoed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to stay at the back. In my view with this setup, with these individuals, this staff, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To that end hiring has been in overdrive, with employees now reaching more than 400 and scheduled to attain the objective of six hundred quickly. Complementing their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of completing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to manufacture the new engine, set for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, contrary to the movement in F1 for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO alluded.
Apollo Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” said the team principal shortly before the British Grand Prix in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, instead of the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of project teams all tackling different aspects of the project across a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they report it to their team leader, that supervisor communicates with a leader somewhere else, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” says Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to handle things directly. Eliminating managerial sign-off for each action is so much cleaner and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this agile strategy will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is no little amount on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
