Just over one year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the official approval as Formula One’s newest entrant for 2026. Constructing the organization from the ground up has entailed a intense work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One descends on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be hosted in the America, with approximately three months to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic project in March 2023 soon after it was created, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart since then and has a knowing grin when reflecting on the journey.
“There might be a brief moment thinking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in under three years,’” he notes. “But then the following moment you think: ‘Well, there is still a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Chester achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the task of introducing the all-American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the parent company, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an F1 team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you don’t get the chance to transform cultural approach.”
With every day that passes thoughts are sharper on the impending critical moment in Australia and targets are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any incoming team coming in is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” the team principal noted earlier this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he felt the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So we turn up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the circuit. After we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we want to show forward movement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Drive
In late summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in competing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the mood of determined optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. In my view given this organization, with this group, these personnel, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to the front and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in top gear, with employees now up to more than 400 and scheduled to reach the objective of 600 rapidly. Alongside their existing facility at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of completing an HQ at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to build the power unit, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will use power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, different from the direction in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred.
Space Mission Model
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how difficult it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, instead of the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all tackling distinct elements of the project across a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a procedure where an issue arises and they raise it up to their supervisor, that leader consults a leader in another department, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” explains 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 success of this agile strategy will be evaluated in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a considerable amount at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
