A little more than a full year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the official approval as the world of Formula One's newest entry for 2026. Establishing the team from the ground up has involved a hectic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be staged in the America, with just over a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent project in March 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core ever since and enjoys a amused expression when reflecting on the ride.
“You might get five minutes thinking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what the team has created in under three years,’” Chester states. “But then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yeah, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Task
Chester had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the mission of introducing the all-American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you don’t get the possibility to alter organizational mindset.”
With every day that elapses focus are increasingly concentrated on the looming critical moment in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.
“One must presume that any incoming team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal stated recently and while Chester shared this view he felt the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we turn up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender performing the right things on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we will focus on forward movement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Drive
In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for the 2026 season, a tandem remarkable for their invaluable experience in competing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas expressed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We face a massive task to do, and it’s going to be most likely a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to finish last. I am confident with this setup, with this group, these people, there is every reason that we won't be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To that end recruitment has been in full swing, with staff now at over 400 and intended to reach the objective of 600 members swiftly. In addition to their current base at Silverstone, the organization are in the midst of building an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are developing the center to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, at odds with the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred.
NASA Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” remarked the team principal ahead of the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we know how difficult it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, rather than the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all tackling different aspects of the mission in a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a procedure where an issue arises and they raise it up to their supervisor, that leader consults a manager at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” notes Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to really get on with it. Avoiding hierarchical consent for all decisions is far more efficient and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this flexible strategy will be tested in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a considerable amount at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their reserve driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
