A little more than a full year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the go-ahead as F1's most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from the ground up has required a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the championship to be held in the US, with around 100 days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent operation in early 2023 soon after it was created, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center ever since and has a amused expression when considering the experience.
“You might get a brief moment reflecting at what you’ve done and think: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “But then the following moment you realize: ‘Yes, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious seasons of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a factory team backed by the owner, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an Formula One team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you rarely get the opportunity to alter organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that elapses minds are more focused on the approaching critical moment in Australia and targets are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he thought the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender doing the proper actions on the race track. After we prove that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Push
In August they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their invaluable experience in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas expressed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to finish last. In my view with this structure, with this team, this staff, it's entirely possible we won't be able to progress rapidly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in overdrive, with staff now up to over 400 and scheduled to attain the target of 600 members swiftly. Complementing their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of completing an headquarters at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the 2029 engine, set for the 2029 season – until then they will use Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a intricate organization, different from the movement in F1 for more centralization, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Chester alluded.
NASA Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” remarked Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we understand how difficult it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, rather than the traditional management structure, a decentralized management similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of specialist groups all focusing on distinct elements of the mission at a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they report it to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a manager somewhere else, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” explains Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to handle things directly. Eliminating managerial sign-off for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this nimble approach will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a significant degree riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta
