Approximately one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the official approval as Formula One’s most recent participant for 2026. Establishing the organization from the ground up has involved a hectic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As Formula One descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be hosted in the US, with approximately three months to go before they make their debut for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic team in early 2023 shortly after it was created, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core since then and gets a wry smile when reflecting on the experience.
“There might be five minutes looking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in less than three years,’” he notes. “But then the following moment you realize: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical development at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has quite compared with the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an F1 team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you rarely get the opportunity to alter organizational mindset.”
With each day that goes by minds are sharper on the impending critical moment in Melbourne and goals are being handled.
“You have to assume that any new team coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted this year and while Chester echoed this he thought the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So we show up and we function efficiently. We want to show that we are a serious contender performing the correct procedures on the track. After we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on progression from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Effort
In late summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a duo distinguished for their priceless expertise in competing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver echoed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and we expect most likely a tough opening, because it is F1. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I am confident with this structure, with this group, these people, there is every reason that we can't manage to get relatively quickly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in top gear, with employees now up to over 400 and planned to hit the goal of 600 members swiftly. Complementing their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the midst of completing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are building the center to produce the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex organisation, different from the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Chester alluded.
NASA Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” remarked Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in July. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how tough it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, rather than the traditional management structure, a decentralized management akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all focusing on distinct elements of the mission across a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a process where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their supervisor, that manager consults a supervisor in another department, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to handle things directly. Moving away from management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a considerable amount at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
