Just over one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's newest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from scratch has entailed a intense operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 descends on Vegas this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the campaign to be held in the America, with around three months to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent team in March 2023 shortly after it was created, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its center since then and has a amused expression when considering the experience.
“You can have a short period thinking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what the team has created in under three years,’” he says. “And then the very next instant you realize: ‘Well, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical direction at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the mission of launching the all-American Cadillac name, a factory team backed by the parent company, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an F1 team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you don’t get the chance to transform organizational mindset.”
With every day that elapses focus are increasingly concentrated on the impending decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.
“One must presume that any incoming team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal stated recently and while Chester shared this view he thought the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we arrive and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender performing the right things on the track. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we will focus on improvement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Push
In late summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a duo notable for their priceless expertise in competing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and we expect probably a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I am confident with this structure, with this group, these personnel, there’s no reason why we can't manage to get relatively quickly to the front and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in top gear, with employees now up to in excess of 400 and intended to hit the goal of six hundred quickly. Complementing their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the midst of finishing an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are developing the facility to manufacture the power unit, planned for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will run power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organization, contrary to the movement in the sport for increased consolidation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred to.
Space Mission Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” said the team principal just before 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’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, rather than the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of project teams all working on distinct elements of the mission at a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a process where a challenge emerges and they report it to their team leader, that supervisor consults a leader somewhere else, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” notes Nick Chester. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Eliminating managerial sign-off for all decisions is so much cleaner and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this nimble methodology will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a considerable amount at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
