A little more than twelve months previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the green light as Formula One’s newest entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from scratch has required a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One descends on Vegas this weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be staged in the US, with approximately three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed team in March 2023 soon after it was created, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core from that point and has a knowing grin when thinking about the journey.
“There might be a short period looking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the following moment you think: ‘Yes, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
The CTO had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has been quite like the mission of launching the iconic American Cadillac name, a factory team sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Establishing an F1 team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the opportunity to transform team culture.”
With each day that elapses minds are increasingly concentrated on the looming moment of truth in Melbourne and expectations are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any incoming team entering the sport is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated recently and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the team had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So that we arrive and we perform competently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation executing the proper actions on the race track. Once we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Drive
In August they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a tandem remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be probably a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, these people, there is every reason that we won't be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with staff now up to more than 400 and intended to hit the goal of 600 quickly. In addition to their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the phase of building an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are building the plant to build the power unit, set for the 2029 season – for now they will use power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organisation, at odds with the direction in F1 for increased consolidation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred to.
NASA Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” stated Graeme Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how tough it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all working on various components of the project at a different facilities.
“In a system where you 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 is relayed back, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “Therefore we enable staff to really get on with it. Moving away from managerial sign-off for everything is so much cleaner and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this nimble strategy will be proven in the heat of competition next season and there is no little amount at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
