Just over one year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the go-ahead as Formula One’s newest participant for 2026. Constructing the organization from scratch has required a hectic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport arrives on Vegas this weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the season to be hosted in the America, 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, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic project in March 2023 soon after it was created, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center ever since and enjoys a knowing grin when thinking about the experience.
“You can have a short period looking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in under three years,’” he notes. “Then the next minute you consider: ‘Well, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's victorious seasons of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the task of bringing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a works entry supported by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Establishing an F1 team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you rarely get the chance to alter organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that passes thoughts are more focused on the approaching critical moment in the Australian GP 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 just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal commented recently and while the CTO shared this view he thought the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we show up and we operate well. We want to show that we are a serious contender doing the correct procedures on the track. When we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate improvement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Effort
In the summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a duo notable for their vast knowledge in competing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. In my view with this setup, with this group, these personnel, there is every reason that we can't manage to get relatively quickly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in top gear, with employees now at more than 400 and scheduled to reach the objective of six hundred rapidly. In addition to their present headquarters at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of completing an HQ at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are constructing the facility to build the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organisation, at odds with the movement in the sport for increased consolidation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred to.
NASA Model
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” stated Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we know how difficult it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all focusing on various components of the program at a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a process where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their team leader, that manager communicates with a leader somewhere else, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” explains Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to take charge. Eliminating management approval for each action is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this agile approach will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a considerable amount riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
