A little more than twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the go-ahead as Formula One’s latest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from nothing has required a intense operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport arrives on Vegas this weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be held in the US, with approximately three months to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the nascent operation in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart ever since and enjoys a wry smile when considering the experience.
“You can have a brief moment reflecting at what you’ve done and go: ‘Wow, how impressive what we’ve done in under three years,’” Chester states. “Then the next minute you realize: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious years of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the task of bringing the iconic American Cadillac name, a works entry sponsored by the parent company, GM, into Formula One.
“Creating an Formula One team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you don’t get the possibility to change team culture.”
With every day that passes minds are sharper on the approaching moment of truth in the Australian GP and goals are being managed.
“One must presume that any incoming team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted this year and while Chester echoed this he thought the team had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that we are a serious contender performing the correct procedures on the track. After we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we will focus on progression after that.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Push
In August they recruited Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo distinguished for their vast knowledge in performing at the front in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver reflected the mood of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work 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 believe with this setup, with this group, this staff, it's entirely possible we won't be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in full swing, with staff now at over 400 and scheduled to hit the goal of 600 members rapidly. Alongside their existing facility at Silverstone, the organization are in the process of building an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to produce the power unit, planned for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a complex organization, at odds with the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred to.
NASA Model
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” remarked Lowdon just before the British GP in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how difficult it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, rather than the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure akin to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of project teams all working on distinct elements of the mission at a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a protocol where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their manager, that leader communicates with a supervisor somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” explains the CTO. “Therefore we enable team members to take charge. Eliminating hierarchical consent for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a significant degree riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
