Approximately a full year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the green light as the world of Formula One's latest entrant for the 2026 season. Building the organization from nothing has involved a hectic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One descends on Vegas this weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be staged in the America, with approximately three months to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are aware there will not be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed team in March 2023 not long after it was established, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core from that point and has a amused expression when reflecting on the ride.
“There might be a brief moment thinking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “Then the very next instant you consider: ‘Well, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's victorious years of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has quite compared with the task of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the owner, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an Formula One team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you won't have the chance to transform team culture.”
With every day that goes by thoughts are more focused on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.
“You have to assume that any incoming team coming in is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal noted recently and while the CTO echoed this he felt the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “In order that we show up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team executing the right things on the track. After we prove that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate progression from there on.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Effort
In August they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a pair distinguished for their invaluable experience in competing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be probably a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I am confident given this organization, with this group, these personnel, there is every reason that we can't manage to advance swiftly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To that end hiring has been in top gear, with personnel now at over 400 and scheduled to reach the goal of 600 members rapidly. Complementing their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of finishing an HQ at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are constructing the center to manufacture the 2029 engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, contrary to the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Chester alluded.
NASA Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” stated Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we know how difficult it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all working on distinct elements of the project across a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their manager, that leader communicates with a manager at a different location, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” says Chester. “Therefore we enable people to take charge. Eliminating hierarchical consent for all decisions is so much cleaner and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a significant degree at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
