Just over twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the go-ahead as Formula One’s latest entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from nothing has required a frenetic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As F1 converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be staged in the US, with just over 100 days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed operation in the spring of 2023 soon after it was formed, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core from that point and enjoys a amused expression when considering the journey.
“You might get a short period reflecting at what you’ve done and think: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he says. “Then the following moment you think: ‘Yes, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious seasons of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical direction at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has truly matched the mission of launching the all-American Cadillac brand, a factory team sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an grand prix team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you won't have the opportunity to change organizational mindset.”
With each day that passes minds are more focused on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad coming in is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon stated recently and while Nick Chester shared this view he believed the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So that we arrive and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender performing the correct procedures on the track. After we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on improvement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Push
In August they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo distinguished for their invaluable experience in performing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver echoed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We face a mountain of work to do, and we expect probably a difficult start, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to finish last. I am confident with this structure, with this group, these personnel, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to the front and taste victory.”
To that end recruitment has been in top gear, with employees now up to over 400 and planned to hit the goal of six hundred quickly. Complementing their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the process of completing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to build the power unit, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate structure, contrary to the direction in the sport for more centralization, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester alluded.
NASA Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said the team principal just before the British GP in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we recognize how tough it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all tackling different aspects of the project at a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they report it to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a manager at a different location, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” says Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to take charge. Avoiding management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a significant degree at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
