Approximately a full year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the official approval as Formula One’s latest entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from nothing has entailed a hectic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the season finale of the championship to be staged in the US, with just over three months to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic project in early 2023 shortly after it was established, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart ever since and has a amused expression when reflecting on the journey.
“There might be a brief moment reflecting at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he says. “But then the very next instant you think: ‘Well, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Nick Chester had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has been quite like the challenge of launching the iconic American Cadillac marque, a works entry sponsored by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an Formula One team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you won't have the possibility to transform team culture.”
With every day that elapses minds are more focused on the approaching decisive point in Australia and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented this year and while Chester echoed this he believed the organization had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we turn up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team doing the correct procedures on the circuit. After we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on improvement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Drive
In late summer they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a tandem distinguished for their invaluable experience in performing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas echoed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and we expect probably a difficult start, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. In my view given this organization, with this team, these personnel, there’s no reason why we won't be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in full swing, with employees now up to more than 400 and planned to reach the target of 600 swiftly. In addition to their present headquarters at Silverstone, the organization are in the process of finishing an HQ at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are developing the plant to produce the 2029 engine, planned for the 2029 season – until then they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex organisation, contrary to the trend in F1 for greater centralisation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred to.
Apollo Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” stated the team principal ahead of the Silverstone race in the summer. “We’re realistic, we recognize how challenging 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 implemented, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of specialist groups all tackling distinct elements of the mission at a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a process where an issue arises and they report it to their manager, that supervisor consults a supervisor in another department, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” says Chester. “So we empower staff to really get on with it. Moving away from managerial sign-off for everything is so much cleaner and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this nimble approach will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a significant degree riding on this for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the young American Colton Herta
