Approximately one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the official approval as Formula One’s newest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from the ground up has entailed a intense work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As the sport converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac understand the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the season to be held in the America, with around three months to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed operation in March 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart from that point and gets a amused expression when considering the experience.
“You might get five minutes looking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we have built in less than three years,’” he says. “And then the very next instant you think: ‘Yes, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has quite compared with the challenge of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a factory team sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an grand prix team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you rarely get the chance to change team culture.”
With each day that passes minds are increasingly concentrated on the approaching moment of truth in the Australian GP and targets are being handled.
“You have to assume that any new team coming in is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while the CTO echoed this he felt the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So we turn up and we operate well. We want to show that we’re a proper team doing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Drive
In the summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo notable for their priceless expertise in performing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver echoed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a massive task to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to finish last. I believe with this structure, with this team, these people, it's entirely possible we can't manage to progress rapidly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in full swing, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and planned to reach the target of 600 rapidly. Alongside their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the process of completing an headquarters at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are developing the facility to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will use Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a intricate organisation, contrary to the trend in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester alluded.
NASA Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” remarked the team principal ahead of the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we know how difficult it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure akin to that of NASA's, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on various components of the project at a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a process where a challenge emerges and they report it to their supervisor, that supervisor consults a supervisor in another department, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” notes Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to handle things directly. Moving away from hierarchical consent for all decisions is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this agile strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is no little amount at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
