Just over twelve months previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the green light as Formula One’s newest entrant for 2026. Constructing the team from nothing has involved a intense operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 converges on Las Vegas this weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be held in the United States, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed team 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 center from that point and gets a knowing grin when thinking about the experience.
“You might get five minutes looking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Incredible, how impressive what the team has created in under three years,’” he notes. “And then the next minute you realize: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the task of bringing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an F1 team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you don’t get the chance to transform organizational mindset.”
With every day that elapses minds are increasingly concentrated on the impending moment of truth in Australia and goals are being handled.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated this year and while the CTO echoed this he believed the team had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “In order that we arrive and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender doing the correct procedures on the circuit. After we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we will focus on progression from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Drive
In late summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair remarkable for their priceless expertise in operating at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and we expect almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I believe with this setup, with this group, these personnel, there’s no reason why we can't manage to progress rapidly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with personnel now up to more than 400 and intended to reach the objective of 600 members rapidly. Complementing their existing facility at the UK base, the organization are in the midst of building an HQ at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are constructing the plant to build the power unit, planned for the 2029 season – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a intricate structure, different from the movement in Formula One for more centralization, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
NASA Inspiration
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” said the team principal shortly before the British Grand Prix in July. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a flat management structure comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all tackling distinct elements of the project across a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a process where a challenge emerges and they report it to their supervisor, that supervisor communicates with a leader in another department, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” explains Chester. “We give authority to staff to take charge. Moving away from hierarchical consent for everything is far more efficient and more rapid.”
The Future
The success of this nimble methodology will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is no little amount on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
