Approximately one year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the green light as F1's latest entry for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from the ground up has required a intense work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be held in the America, with around 100 days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed project in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart ever since and gets a knowing grin when thinking about the experience.
“There might be a short period looking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Yes, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Task
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac brand, a factory team supported by the owner, GM, into Formula One.
“Establishing an F1 team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you don’t get the possibility to change organizational mindset.”
With every day that goes by minds are sharper on the impending critical moment in Melbourne and targets are being handled.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is going to be last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” the team principal commented recently and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we turn up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender performing the proper actions on the circuit. When we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show improvement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Drive
In late summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem notable for their priceless expertise in competing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to finish last. I am confident given this organization, with this group, this staff, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in top gear, with personnel now reaching more than 400 and intended to attain the target of six hundred swiftly. In addition to their current base at Silverstone, the organization are in the phase of completing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are developing the plant to build the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, contrary to the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred to.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” stated Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we understand how challenging it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, rather than the traditional management structure, a decentralized management akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all focusing on distinct elements of the project in a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a process where an issue arises and they raise it up to their manager, that manager consults a supervisor somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” explains Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to really get on with it. Eliminating hierarchical consent for each action is far more efficient and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this flexible strategy will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is no little amount at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
