Just over twelve months previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the green light as Formula One’s latest entrant for 2026. Establishing the team from the ground up has required a hectic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One arrives on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be staged in the United States, with around 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent project in the spring of 2023 soon after it was formed, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center since then and enjoys a amused expression when considering the ride.
“There might be a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we have built in less than three years,’” he says. “And then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the mission of launching the all-American Cadillac marque, a works entry backed by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you won't have the possibility to transform team culture.”
With each passing day that elapses minds are sharper on the impending critical moment in the Australian GP and goals are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated this year and while Chester echoed this he felt the team had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we arrive and we operate well. We want to show that we are a serious contender performing the right things on the circuit. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we want to show improvement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Effort
In August they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a pair distinguished for their priceless expertise in competing at the front in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the mood of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a tough opening, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to finish last. In my view with this structure, with this group, this staff, there’s no reason why we can't manage to advance swiftly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in full swing, with staff now reaching over 400 and scheduled to reach the goal of 600 members swiftly. Alongside their existing facility at Silverstone, the team are in the phase of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the center to build the new engine, set for the 2029 season – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate organisation, different from the movement in F1 for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” stated Graeme Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management similar to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all focusing on different aspects of the project across a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their team leader, that leader consults a supervisor at a different location, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” says Nick Chester. “So we empower people to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for each action is so much cleaner and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this flexible strategy will be tested in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a considerable amount on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
