A little more than a full year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the go-ahead as Formula One’s newest participant for 2026. Constructing the team from scratch has involved a hectic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the campaign to be held in the America, with around 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are aware there will not be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent operation in the spring of 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart from that point and enjoys a knowing grin when reflecting on the journey.
“You can have five minutes looking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he says. “Then the next minute you think: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's title-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical development at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the challenge of introducing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a factory team sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an F1 team from nothing, 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 possibility to change organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that goes by thoughts are sharper on the impending critical moment in Melbourne and targets are being handled.
“One must presume that any new team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal stated this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he thought the team had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So that we turn up and we operate well. We want to show that this is a professional operation executing the proper actions on the race track. When we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show progression after that.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Effort
In the summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for the 2026 season, a duo notable for their invaluable experience in performing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver echoed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. In my view given this organization, with this group, these personnel, there is every reason that we won't be able to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with personnel now up to in excess of 400 and scheduled to reach the target of 600 rapidly. Alongside their existing facility at Silverstone, the team are in the midst of completing an main base at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to manufacture the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, contrary to the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Chester referred to.
Apollo Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” stated Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how difficult it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management akin to that of NASA's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all tackling distinct elements of the mission at a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their team leader, that leader consults a manager in another department, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” says the CTO. “So we empower people to really get on with it. Avoiding hierarchical consent for all decisions is far more efficient and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this nimble approach will be proven in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a considerable amount on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
