A little more than one year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the green light as the world of Formula One's latest entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from the ground up has entailed a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the season to be hosted in the United States, with around three months to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent operation in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart since then and gets a knowing grin when thinking about the experience.
“There might be five minutes reflecting at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what the team has created in less than three years,’” Chester states. “But then the next minute you think: ‘Yeah, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the challenge of bringing the all-American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the parent company, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an Formula One team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you won't have the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”
With every day that passes thoughts are sharper on the approaching decisive point in Melbourne and goals are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon commented this year and while Chester shared this view he believed the team had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So that we turn up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team performing the proper actions on the circuit. When we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on progression from there on.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Drive
In August they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a tandem notable for their invaluable experience in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the attitude of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be most likely a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I believe given this organization, with this group, these personnel, there is every reason that we won't be able to get relatively quickly to the front and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with staff now at in excess of 400 and intended to hit the goal of 600 members rapidly. Complementing their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the phase of completing an HQ at Fishers in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to manufacture the new engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organization, contrary to the movement in the sport for more centralization, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester alluded.
NASA Model
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” stated Graeme Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, rather than the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all working on distinct elements of the program across a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a protocol where an issue arises and they raise it up to their manager, that manager consults a leader somewhere else, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” explains Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be tested in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a considerable amount at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta
