A little more than one year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the go-ahead as Formula One’s most recent entry for 2026. Building the organization from scratch has entailed a hectic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac understand time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be staged in the US, with approximately three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are aware there will not be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic project in early 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center ever since and has a amused expression when reflecting on the journey.
“You might get a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Wow, how impressive what the team has created in under three years,’” he notes. “But then the next minute you consider: ‘Well, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Alonso's title-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in control of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the task of bringing the all-American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an F1 team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you don’t get the possibility to transform cultural approach.”
With each passing day that passes thoughts are more focused on the approaching moment of truth in Australia and expectations are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad entering the sport is going to be last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he felt the squad had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we should be there,” he says. “In order that we turn up and we operate well. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team executing the proper actions on the circuit. When we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression after that.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Effort
In August they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo distinguished for their vast knowledge in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We face a massive task to do, and we expect probably a tough opening, because it is F1. But we’re not there to finish last. I am confident with this setup, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with employees now at over 400 and planned to attain the target of 600 members quickly. Alongside their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the process of completing an HQ at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are constructing the center to manufacture the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organization, different from the movement in F1 for greater centralisation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Chester referred.
NASA Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” said Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how tough it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management akin to that of NASA's, where there were a range of project teams all tackling various components of the mission across a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a process where an issue arises and they escalate it to their supervisor, that manager communicates with a manager in another department, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” notes Chester. “We give authority to people to handle things directly. Eliminating management approval for everything is much smoother and faster.”
The Future
The success of this agile approach will be tested in the pressure of racing next season and there is a significant degree riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
