Approximately one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the go-ahead as F1's most recent entry for 2026. Building the organization from nothing has required a frenetic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac are aware time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be held in the US, with just over three months to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed project in the spring of 2023 soon after it was formed, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center from that point and has a knowing grin when reflecting on the journey.
“There might be a short period reflecting at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we have built in under three years,’” he says. “Then the following moment you consider: ‘Well, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in charge of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the mission of introducing the all-American Cadillac name, a factory team backed by the owner, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an Formula One team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you rarely get the possibility to transform organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that passes focus are sharper on the looming decisive point in Australia and targets are being handled.
“One must presume that any new team joining the grid is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So that we arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that we are a serious contender doing the proper actions on the race track. Once we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate improvement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Drive
In late summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair distinguished for their vast knowledge in performing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver expressed the mood of determined optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be probably a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I am confident with this structure, with these individuals, these personnel, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in top gear, with staff now at in excess of 400 and intended to reach the goal of 600 quickly. Complementing their current base at Silverstone, the team are in the phase of building an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to build the new engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex structure, different from the direction in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” said the team principal just before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we understand how difficult it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management similar to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all tackling distinct elements of the project across a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they report it to their manager, that leader consults a supervisor in another department, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” explains the CTO. “We give authority to staff to handle things directly. Avoiding managerial sign-off for all decisions is so much cleaner and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this agile approach will be proven in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is no little amount on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
