A little more than a full year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as Formula One’s latest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from scratch has entailed a intense work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As the sport arrives on Vegas this race weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the season to be held in the United States, with around a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed project in March 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart ever since and gets a amused expression when thinking about the experience.
“You might get five minutes thinking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he notes. “But then the next minute you think: ‘Well, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Chester achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the mission of launching the iconic American Cadillac name, a works entry backed by the parent company, GM, into Formula One.
“Establishing an Formula One team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you don’t get the possibility to alter team culture.”
With each day that goes by minds are more focused on the approaching decisive point in Melbourne and targets are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon stated recently and while Nick Chester shared this view he thought the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we want to show 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 executing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we will focus on improvement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive
In August they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in performing at the front in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver reflected the mood of determined optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We face a massive task to do, and we expect probably a tough opening, because it is F1. But we’re not there to stay at the back. In my view with this setup, with this group, this staff, it's entirely possible we won't be able to progress rapidly to the front and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with staff now up to more than 400 and scheduled to attain the objective of 600 members swiftly. In addition to their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the midst of completing an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to produce the power unit, set for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will run Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, contrary to the movement in F1 for increased consolidation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred to.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” stated the team principal ahead of the British GP in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how challenging it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of project teams all focusing on different aspects of the project in a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a protocol where an issue arises and they report it to their team leader, that supervisor communicates with a leader somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” explains the CTO. “We give authority to staff to handle things directly. Avoiding management approval for all decisions is much smoother and quicker.”
The Future
The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be tested in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is no little amount on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
