Just over one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the official approval as Formula One’s most recent entry for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from the ground up has involved a intense work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be held in the United States, with approximately three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic operation in early 2023 shortly after it was established, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center since then and has a wry smile when considering the journey.
“You can have a short period reflecting at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in less than three years,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you consider: ‘Yes, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical development at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has been quite like the challenge of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the parent company, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an Formula One team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you don’t get the possibility to change organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that goes by focus are sharper on the impending critical moment in Australia and goals are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any incoming 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 recently and while Chester shared this view he believed the team had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So we turn up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender executing the proper actions on the race track. After we prove that we’re really credible, then we will focus on improvement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Drive
In late summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo remarkable for their priceless expertise in operating at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We have a mountain of work to do, and we expect probably a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to finish last. I believe with this setup, with these individuals, these personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to the front and taste victory.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in top gear, with personnel now reaching over 400 and scheduled to hit the target of 600 rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at Silverstone, the organization are in the midst of finishing an headquarters at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to manufacture the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will use power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a complex organisation, at odds with the direction in F1 for increased consolidation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred.
Space Mission Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” said Graeme Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in July. “We are pragmatic, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, instead of the traditional management structure, a decentralized management comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all tackling various components of the program at a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they report it to their manager, that leader consults a supervisor in another department, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” explains Chester. “So we empower people to really get on with it. Moving away from management approval for everything is much smoother and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this nimble methodology will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a significant degree on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
