A little more than one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the green light as the world of Formula One's most recent participant for 2026. Establishing the squad from nothing has entailed a frenetic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One arrives on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac understand time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the last event of the season to be held in the US, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent project in early 2023 not long after it was formed, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart from that point and enjoys a knowing grin when considering the journey.
“You might get five minutes thinking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you consider: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has been quite like the challenge of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a factory team backed by the parent company, General Motors, into F1.
“Building an grand prix team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you don’t get the chance to alter organizational mindset.”
With each day that elapses focus are sharper on the impending moment of truth in Melbourne and targets are being managed.
“You have to assume that any incoming team joining the grid is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the organization had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “In order that we turn up and we function efficiently. We want to show that this is a professional operation executing the correct procedures on the track. After we prove that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Push
In August they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a pair distinguished for their invaluable experience in competing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Bottas expressed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a difficult start, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I believe with this setup, with these individuals, this staff, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in full swing, with staff now reaching more than 400 and planned to attain the target of 600 swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the phase of completing an HQ at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to build the new engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate organisation, different from the trend in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred to.
Space Mission Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” stated Lowdon just before the British GP in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure akin to that of NASA's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all focusing on various components of the project across a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a process where an issue arises and they escalate it to their supervisor, that manager consults a leader in another department, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” notes Chester. “So we empower people to handle things directly. Moving away from managerial sign-off for everything is so much cleaner and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this nimble strategy will be tested in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is no little amount on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
