Just over twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the green light as Formula One’s latest entry for 2026. Building the team from the ground up has involved a frenetic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the championship to be staged in the America, with around three months to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent operation in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center since then and gets a amused expression when considering the experience.
“There might be a brief moment thinking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Wow, how impressive what we have built in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “But then the next minute you consider: ‘Yes, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Nick Chester had success at Renault in Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the task of bringing the all-American Cadillac name, a works entry supported by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Establishing an grand prix team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the opportunity to change cultural approach.”
With every day that elapses thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the impending moment of truth in Australia and targets are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the squad had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “In order that we show up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team performing the correct procedures on the race track. After we prove that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate progression from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive
In the summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their vast knowledge in competing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a tough opening, because it is F1. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I believe with this setup, with this team, this staff, there’s no reason why we won't be able to get relatively quickly to the front and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in full swing, with staff now at over 400 and intended to hit the goal of 600 members rapidly. In addition to their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of completing an HQ at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to manufacture the 2029 engine, planned for the 2029 season – until then they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, contrary to the movement in Formula One for more centralization, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
NASA Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” said Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, 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 embraced, rather than the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of specialist groups all tackling distinct elements of the project across a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their team leader, that leader communicates with a supervisor somewhere else, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” says Nick Chester. “So we empower team members to take charge. Moving away from hierarchical consent for each action is far more efficient and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this nimble strategy will be proven in the heat of competition next season and there is a considerable amount riding on this for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta
