A little more than one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the go-ahead as F1's most recent entrant for 2026. Constructing the organization from scratch has required a frenetic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the final race of the season to be hosted in the America, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed operation in early 2023 soon after it was established, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core since then and enjoys a wry smile when considering the experience.
“You can have a short period looking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we have built in under three years,’” Chester states. “But then the following moment you consider: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical development at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the challenge of launching the all-American Cadillac name, a works entry backed by the owner, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an grand prix team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you won't have the opportunity to change team culture.”
With every day that goes by focus are sharper on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and goals are being managed.
“One must presume that any new team entering the sport is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” the team principal noted earlier this year and while the CTO echoed this he felt the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we arrive and we operate well. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation doing the correct procedures on the circuit. After we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on progression from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Effort
In the summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their priceless expertise in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he said. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a difficult start, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. In my view with this setup, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to the front and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in overdrive, with staff now up to more than 400 and scheduled to attain the objective of six hundred quickly. Complementing their current base at the UK base, the organization are in the midst of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are developing the plant to manufacture the new engine, planned for the 2029 season – for now they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organization, at odds with the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which the CTO alluded.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” said the team principal ahead of the British GP in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we recognize how challenging it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of project teams all focusing on distinct elements of the project in a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a procedure where an issue arises and they escalate it to their supervisor, that leader communicates with a leader at a different location, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” explains Chester. “We give authority to team members to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for all decisions is so much cleaner and faster.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this agile strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a significant degree at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
