Approximately one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the official approval as Formula One’s newest participant for 2026. Establishing the organization from nothing has required a intense operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac understand time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the championship to be hosted in the United States, with just over a hundred days to go before they make their debut 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 conscious there will not be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic project in March 2023 not long after it was formed, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center ever since and enjoys a wry smile when considering the experience.
“You can have a brief moment reflecting at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in under three years,’” he says. “And then the very next instant you think: ‘Yeah, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Chester achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical direction at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has quite compared with the task of bringing the all-American Cadillac name, a works entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors, into F1.
“Establishing an Formula One team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you won't have the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”
With every day that passes minds are more focused on the looming moment of truth in Melbourne and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team coming in is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon commented this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he thought the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “In order that we arrive and we function efficiently. We want to show that we’re a proper team executing the right things on the circuit. After we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we want to show improvement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive
In late summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to finish last. In my view with this setup, with this team, these people, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in overdrive, with staff now up to in excess of 400 and intended to hit the target of 600 quickly. In addition to their existing facility at the UK base, the team are in the midst of building an headquarters at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to build the 2029 engine, set for the 2029 season – for now they will run Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, at odds with the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred to.
Apollo Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how challenging it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, instead of the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all tackling distinct elements of the program across a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a procedure where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their supervisor, that leader consults a supervisor in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” says the CTO. “We give authority to team members to take charge. Moving away from hierarchical consent for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be tested in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a significant degree at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
