Approximately twelve months ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the green light as Formula One’s most recent entrant for 2026. Building the team from nothing has entailed a hectic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As the sport descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the season to be held in the US, with around three months to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic operation in early 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart since then and has a amused expression when thinking about the experience.
“You can have a short period reflecting at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we have built in under three years,’” Chester states. “But then the following moment you consider: ‘Yes, there is still a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Chester had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the mission of launching the iconic American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the parent company, GM, into F1.
“Building an grand prix team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you won't have the opportunity to transform team culture.”
With each passing day that goes by minds are sharper on the impending decisive point in Melbourne and targets are being handled.
“You have to assume that any incoming team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal stated this year and while Chester echoed this he believed the team had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “In order that we arrive and we function efficiently. We want to show that we are a serious contender doing the proper actions on the race track. When we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate progression from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Push
In August they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas echoed the mood of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and we expect most likely a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to finish last. I believe given this organization, with this team, these personnel, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to the front and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in overdrive, with staff now up to more than 400 and intended to reach the target of 600 members swiftly. In addition to their existing facility at Silverstone, the squad are in the process of completing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to manufacture the power unit, planned for 2029 – until then they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex structure, at odds with the trend in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Chester alluded.
Space Mission Model
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Graeme Lowdon just before the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we recognize how tough it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of project teams all working on different aspects of the program in a different facilities.
“When you must follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their manager, that manager consults a leader in another department, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” says Chester. “So we empower team members to handle things directly. Moving away from hierarchical consent for all decisions is so much cleaner and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this agile methodology will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a considerable amount riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
