A little more than twelve months in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the green light as Formula One’s newest entry for 2026. Constructing the organization from scratch has required a hectic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the campaign to be staged in the US, with approximately a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent operation in the spring of 2023 soon after it was established, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center ever since and gets a wry smile when thinking about the ride.
“You might get a brief moment reflecting at what you’ve done and say: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he says. “But then the following moment you consider: ‘Well, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical direction at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the challenge of introducing the all-American Cadillac name, a works entry sponsored by the parent company, GM, into F1.
“Building an Formula One team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you don’t get the possibility to alter cultural approach.”
With every day that passes focus are increasingly concentrated on the looming decisive point in Melbourne and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal commented earlier this year and while the CTO shared this view he thought the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the circuit. When we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we want to show forward movement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Push
In the summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a duo notable for their priceless expertise in performing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, this staff, it's entirely possible we won't be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To that end hiring has been in overdrive, with employees now reaching in excess of 400 and scheduled to reach the goal of 600 rapidly. Alongside their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of completing an main base at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to produce the 2029 engine, planned for the 2029 season – for now they will run power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organization, different from the movement in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred to.
NASA Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we know how challenging it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all focusing on different aspects of the project in a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a procedure where someone has a problem and they report it to their team leader, that leader talks to a supervisor somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” explains Nick Chester. “We give authority to people to take charge. Eliminating management approval for everything is so much cleaner and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this agile strategy will be proven in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is no little amount at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
