Just over a full year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the go-ahead as Formula One’s newest participant for 2026. Building the team from scratch has entailed a hectic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One arrives 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 season to be hosted in the United States, with around three months to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed operation in early 2023 not long after it was formed, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its center since then and gets a amused expression when considering the experience.
“You can have a brief moment thinking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Wow, what an achievement what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he says. “And then the following moment you think: ‘Yes, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Task
Nick Chester had success at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical development at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the mission of launching the all-American Cadillac marque, a works entry sponsored by the owner, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an grand prix team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you don’t get the possibility to alter team culture.”
With every day that passes focus are more focused on the approaching moment of truth in Australia and targets are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team joining the grid is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted recently and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that we are a serious contender executing the right things on the race track. After we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show progression subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Push
In August they recruited Checo Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their vast knowledge in competing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver echoed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. In my view given this organization, with these individuals, this staff, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to the front and achieve good results.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in top gear, with staff now reaching more than 400 and planned to reach the target of 600 members rapidly. Complementing their current base at Silverstone, the organization are in the phase of completing an main base at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are developing the plant to build the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate structure, contrary to the direction in the sport for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred to.
Apollo Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” stated Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how challenging it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all working on various components of the project across a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a process where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their supervisor, that manager consults a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” says Nick Chester. “We give authority to people to take charge. Moving away from managerial sign-off for all decisions is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this flexible approach will be tested in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is no little amount at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
