Just over one year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the green light as the world of Formula One's newest entry for the 2026 season. Building the team from scratch has required a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 descends on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be hosted in the America, with just over a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season 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 newly formed operation in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was created, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart from that point and gets a amused expression when thinking about the experience.
“There might be a brief moment reflecting at what you’ve done and go: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in less than three years,’” Chester states. “Then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yeah, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Task
Chester had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the mission of introducing the all-American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“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 established team you won't have the chance to transform organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that goes by minds are increasingly concentrated on the looming critical moment in Melbourne and goals are being set realistically.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Chester shared this view he felt the team had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So we show up and we function efficiently. We want to show that we are a serious contender doing the correct procedures on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate improvement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Drive
In late summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a duo notable for their priceless expertise in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas expressed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and we expect probably a difficult start, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to finish last. I am confident with this setup, with this team, these people, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to the front and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with employees now up to more than 400 and planned to attain the goal of six hundred rapidly. In addition to their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of building an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the new engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – for now they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the direction in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which the CTO alluded.
NASA Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” stated the team principal ahead of the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we recognize how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all focusing on different aspects of the mission in a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where an issue arises and they raise it up to their manager, that leader talks to a supervisor at a different location, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” says Chester. “So we empower team members to take charge. Eliminating management approval for each action is far more efficient and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this agile strategy will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a considerable amount on the line for the sport, too. Cadillac have taken on as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
