🔗 Share this article

Just over twelve months previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the official approval as the world of Formula One's most recent participant for the 2026 season. Building the team from scratch has involved a hectic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport descends on Vegas this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.

The Countdown to Melbourne

At the last event of the campaign to be staged in the America, with around 100 days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.

The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic project in March 2023 soon after it was established, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its core from that point and enjoys a knowing grin when thinking about the ride.

“You can have a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in under three years,’” he notes. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Yes, there is still a significant amount to do.’”

An Unprecedented Opportunity

Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical direction at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has quite compared with the mission of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a factory team sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors, into F1.

“Building an Formula One team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you rarely get the possibility to alter team culture.”

With each passing day that elapses focus are more focused on the looming moment of truth in the Australian GP and goals are being set realistically.

“One must presume that any new team coming in is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he thought the team had a reputation to build as well.

“Our primary goal we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation performing the right things on the track. Once we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show progression subsequently.”

Racing Talent and Hiring Effort

In late summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their priceless expertise in performing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Bottas expressed the mood of combative optimism.

“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a difficult start, because it is F1. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I believe with this structure, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we can't manage to get relatively quickly to the front and taste victory.”

To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with employees now reaching over 400 and planned to attain the objective of six hundred swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of building an headquarters at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are building the plant to produce the power unit, scheduled for the 2029 season – until then they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a intricate organization, at odds with the direction in F1 for increased consolidation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred.

Apollo Blueprint

“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” said Graeme Lowdon just before the British GP in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we know how difficult it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”

So they have adopted, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all working on distinct elements of the program at a different facilities.

“If you have to go through a process where an issue arises and they raise it up to their supervisor, that leader consults a supervisor at a different location, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” notes Chester. “We give authority to people to handle things directly. Eliminating management approval for everything is far more efficient and quicker.”

The Future

The success of this agile approach will be evaluated in the heat of competition next season and there is a considerable amount riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta