Approximately a full year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the green light as F1's most recent participant for 2026. Constructing the organization from scratch has required a frenetic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be staged in the United States, with around a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in March 2023 soon after it was formed, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center from that point and has a amused expression when thinking about the experience.
“You might get a brief moment looking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “But then the next minute you realize: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
The CTO had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the mission of launching the iconic American Cadillac name, a factory team backed by the owner, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an Formula One team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you won't have the chance to transform team culture.”
With every day that elapses thoughts are more focused on the impending critical moment in Australia and goals are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team joining the grid is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he thought the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So that we arrive and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender doing the right things on the track. After we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate progression subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Effort
In the summer they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a duo remarkable for their vast knowledge in competing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be probably a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I believe given this organization, with these individuals, these personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To that end hiring has been in top gear, with personnel now reaching more than 400 and planned to hit the goal of 600 members swiftly. Complementing their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of completing an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to manufacture the power unit, planned for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex organization, at odds with the trend in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred to.
NASA Model
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” stated Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how difficult it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, rather than the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all tackling various components of the program at a different facilities.
“When you must follow a protocol where an issue arises and they escalate it to their team leader, that supervisor consults a leader in another department, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” notes Chester. “So we empower staff to handle things directly. Avoiding management approval for everything is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
The Future
The success of this nimble approach will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
