Approximately twelve months in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the green light as the world of Formula One's newest entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from the ground up has required a hectic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 descends on Vegas this weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the season finale of the season to be hosted in the America, with just over three months to go before they make their debut for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed operation in early 2023 shortly after it was established, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart ever since and enjoys a amused expression when considering the ride.
“There might be a brief moment thinking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in under three years,’” he notes. “Then the very next instant you think: ‘Yes, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical development at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a works entry sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Establishing an Formula One team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you won't have the chance to transform organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that passes minds are more focused on the impending moment of truth in the Australian GP and targets are being handled.
“You have to assume that any new team coming in is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted recently and while the CTO echoed this he thought the organization had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender executing the right things on the race track. Once we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we want to show improvement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive
In the summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair remarkable for their priceless expertise in operating at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Bottas expressed the mood of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he said. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be probably a difficult start, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe with this setup, with these individuals, these people, there is every reason that we can't manage to advance swiftly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in full swing, with staff now up to over 400 and intended to hit the target of 600 members rapidly. In addition to their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of completing an headquarters at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are developing the facility to build the power unit, scheduled for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, at odds with the direction in the sport for more centralization, and has led to the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred.
NASA Blueprint
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” said Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how difficult it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, rather than the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all focusing on different aspects of the mission across a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their manager, that leader talks to a supervisor at a different location, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” says Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to handle things directly. Avoiding management approval for each action is much smoother and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this agile strategy will be proven in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a significant degree at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
