Just over one year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the green light as Formula One’s newest entry for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from scratch has involved a intense work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the championship to be hosted in the United States, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic project in early 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core since then and gets a amused expression when reflecting on the experience.
“You might get a brief moment looking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “Then the very next instant you think: ‘Yes, there is still a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Nick Chester had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has been quite like the mission of launching the all-American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you rarely get the chance to change organizational mindset.”
With every day that elapses focus are more focused on the impending decisive point in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented recently and while the CTO echoed this he thought the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “In order that we arrive and we operate well. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the circuit. After we prove that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate progression from there on.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Drive
In late summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for the 2026 season, a tandem remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I am confident with this structure, with this group, these personnel, it's entirely possible we can't manage to progress rapidly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in full swing, with personnel now up to over 400 and planned to reach the target of 600 swiftly. Alongside their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the process of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to produce the new engine, set for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, contrary to the movement in F1 for more centralization, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester alluded.
NASA Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how challenging it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a decentralized management similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all working on various components of the project across a different facilities.
“When you must follow a process where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their manager, that leader talks to a leader somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says Chester. “So we empower people to really get on with it. Eliminating management approval for everything is much smoother and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this flexible approach will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a considerable amount on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta
