A little more than one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the official approval as F1's most recent entry for 2026. Establishing the organization from nothing has required a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As the sport arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the final race of the season to be hosted in the United States, with around three months to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed operation in the spring of 2023 not long after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core from that point and enjoys a wry smile when thinking about the journey.
“There might be five minutes looking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he says. “But then the following moment you think: ‘Yes, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Task
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the mission of bringing the all-American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you rarely get the chance to change cultural approach.”
With every day that goes by minds are more focused on the looming critical moment in Melbourne and targets are being managed.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the organization had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So that we show up and we function efficiently. We want to show that we are a serious contender executing the right things on the circuit. When we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate improvement after that.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Effort
In August they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a pair remarkable for their priceless expertise in operating at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas expressed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We face a mountain of work to do, and we expect probably a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I am confident given this organization, with this group, this staff, there’s no reason why we won't be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with employees now reaching more than 400 and planned to hit the target of 600 members swiftly. Alongside their present headquarters at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of building an HQ at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to manufacture the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate organisation, at odds with the direction in Formula One for more centralization, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” remarked the team principal shortly before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the mission across a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a process where an issue arises and they report it to their supervisor, that leader consults a leader somewhere else, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” notes Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to really get on with it. Avoiding hierarchical consent for everything is so much cleaner and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is no little amount at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
