Approximately twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the green light as Formula One’s newest entry for 2026. Constructing the squad from scratch has required a frenetic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport arrives on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the campaign to be held in the America, with around a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed project in March 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its center from that point and enjoys a knowing grin when thinking about the journey.
“There might be a brief moment looking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we have built in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Task
Chester had success at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has quite compared with the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors, into F1.
“Creating an Formula One team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you don’t get the opportunity to alter organizational mindset.”
With every day that goes by thoughts are more focused on the impending moment of truth in Melbourne and expectations are being handled.
“You have to assume that any incoming team entering the sport is going to be last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented recently and while Chester shared this view he believed the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we arrive and we function efficiently. We want to show that we’re a proper team performing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate improvement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Drive
In August they signed Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a duo notable for their vast knowledge in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the mood of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be probably a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I believe with this setup, with this group, this staff, there’s no reason why we won't be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To that end hiring has been in overdrive, with employees now reaching in excess of 400 and planned to reach the objective of 600 members rapidly. Complementing their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the midst of finishing an main base at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the center to build the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the movement in Formula One for more centralization, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred.
NASA Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” stated Lowdon shortly before the British GP in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how challenging it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a decentralized management akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all focusing on various components of the program in a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor consults a manager in another department, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” says Chester. “We give authority to staff to really get on with it. Eliminating managerial sign-off for everything is far more efficient and quicker.”
The Future
The efficacy of this agile approach will be proven in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a considerable amount riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
