Approximately a full year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the green light as Formula One’s latest participant for 2026. Establishing the organization from nothing has entailed a intense operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the campaign to be staged in the US, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds 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, became part of the nascent project in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was created, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center ever since and gets a amused expression when thinking about the experience.
“You can have five minutes thinking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Incredible, how impressive what the team has created in under three years,’” he notes. “Then the next minute you consider: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical direction at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the challenge of bringing the all-American Cadillac brand, a factory team supported by the corporate entity, GM, into Formula One.
“Establishing an grand prix team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you rarely get the possibility to change cultural approach.”
With each passing day that passes focus are more focused on the approaching decisive point in Melbourne and goals are being handled.
“One must presume that any incoming team entering the sport is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the team had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So that we arrive and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate 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 improvement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Push
In August they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem notable for their invaluable experience in competing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We face a mountain of work to do, and we expect probably a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to finish last. I believe given this organization, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we won't be able to get relatively quickly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in full swing, with employees now at in excess of 400 and scheduled to attain the target of 600 quickly. Alongside their present headquarters at Silverstone, the team are in the process of building an HQ at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to produce the power unit, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will run Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organization, at odds with the movement in F1 for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred to.
Apollo Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” said the team principal just before the British GP in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how tough it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all focusing on various components of the program at a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where an issue arises and they report it to their team leader, that manager communicates with a supervisor somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” explains the CTO. “We give authority to team members to really get on with it. Avoiding hierarchical consent for everything is so much cleaner and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be tested in the pressure of racing next season and there is no little amount at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
