Approximately one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the green light as F1's latest entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from nothing has involved a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One converges on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be held in the US, with just over a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent team in March 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its center since then and has a knowing grin when thinking about the experience.
“You might get five minutes looking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Wow, how impressive what the team has created in under three years,’” he says. “And then the next minute you realize: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Chester achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical direction at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the task of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a factory team backed by the parent company, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an F1 team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you don’t get the opportunity to transform organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that goes by focus are more focused on the approaching moment of truth in Melbourne and targets are being handled.
“One must presume that any incoming team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon commented recently and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So we arrive and we operate well. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team executing the right things on the circuit. When we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show forward movement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Effort
In August they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a duo remarkable for their vast knowledge in operating at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a difficult start, because it is F1. But we’re not there to finish last. I am confident with this setup, with this group, these personnel, it's entirely possible we won't be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in full swing, with employees now at over 400 and intended to reach the objective of 600 members swiftly. Alongside their current base at Silverstone, the team are in the process of building an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are developing the plant to manufacture the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, contrary to the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
Apollo Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” remarked the team principal shortly before the British Grand Prix in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how difficult it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, rather than the traditional management structure, a decentralized management akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of project teams all working on various components of the mission at a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a procedure where an issue arises and they raise it up to their team leader, that manager consults a manager at a different location, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “Therefore we enable team members to handle things directly. Moving away from management approval for everything is so much cleaner and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this flexible strategy will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a considerable amount at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
