A little more than twelve months in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the green light as F1's latest entrant for 2026. Building the team from nothing has involved a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be held in the United States, with approximately 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are cognizant there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic operation in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was established, when the organization 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.
“There might be a brief moment thinking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in less than three years,’” Chester states. “But then the next minute you think: ‘Well, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the mission of introducing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a factory team supported by the parent company, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an F1 team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the possibility to change team culture.”
With each passing day that goes by minds are more focused on the looming moment of truth in the Australian GP and targets are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team joining the grid is going to be last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated this year and while the CTO shared this view he felt the organization had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “In order that we show up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation doing the right things on the race track. When we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate improvement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Drive
In the summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their vast knowledge in operating at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas expressed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be probably a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I believe given this organization, with this group, these personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and planned to hit the goal of 600 members quickly. Alongside their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of finishing an HQ at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to produce the new engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – until then they will use Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex structure, at odds with the movement in the sport for increased consolidation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
NASA Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how tough it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a decentralized management akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of project teams all working on distinct elements of the program at a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where an issue arises and they raise it up to their team leader, that manager communicates with a leader at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” explains Nick Chester. “We give authority to people to take charge. Moving away from hierarchical consent for everything is so much cleaner and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this flexible strategy will be evaluated in the heat of competition next season and there is a considerable amount on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
