Approximately one year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's latest entry for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from scratch has involved a frenetic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the season to be held in the America, with approximately 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the nascent operation in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was established, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center ever since and enjoys a amused expression when reflecting on the ride.
“You might get a brief moment looking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “But then the very next instant you realize: ‘Well, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical development at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the mission of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a works entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Building an Formula One team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you rarely get the chance to alter organizational mindset.”
With every day that goes by thoughts are more focused on the looming critical moment in Australia and goals are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any incoming team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal commented this year and while the CTO shared this view he thought the organization had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So we arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that we are a serious contender doing the correct procedures on the circuit. When we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on improvement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive
In late summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a tandem notable for their vast knowledge in competing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. In my view given this organization, with this group, these personnel, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in top gear, with staff now reaching over 400 and planned to hit the goal of six hundred quickly. Complementing their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the phase of building an headquarters at Fishers in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are building the facility to build the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate organization, different from the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which the CTO alluded.
Apollo Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” remarked Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all focusing on different aspects of the mission across a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a process where a challenge emerges and they report it to their team leader, that leader talks to a leader somewhere else, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” explains Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to take charge. Eliminating hierarchical consent for everything is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this agile strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a significant degree riding on this for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
