🔗 Share this article

Approximately a full year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the green light as F1's most recent entrant for 2026. Building the organization from the ground up has involved a intense operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac understand the clock is ticking.

The Race Against Time to Melbourne

At the season finale of the championship to be held in the US, with just over 100 days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.

The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed project in early 2023 shortly after it was created, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart ever since and gets a amused expression when reflecting on the ride.

“There might be a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in under three years,’” he says. “But then the very next instant you consider: ‘Well, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”

A Unique Task

Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious seasons of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has been quite like the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac name, a works entry backed by the owner, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.

“Creating an Formula One team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you rarely get the possibility to change cultural approach.”

With every day that goes by focus are sharper on the impending critical moment in Melbourne and targets are being managed.

“One must presume that any incoming team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the team had a statement to make as well.

“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “In order that we arrive and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender executing the proper actions on the race track. When we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show progression subsequently.”

Driver Lineup and Team Building Push

In August they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair notable for their priceless expertise in operating at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Bottas echoed the attitude of determined optimism.

“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he said. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to stay at the back. In my view given this organization, with these individuals, these personnel, it's entirely possible we won't be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and taste victory.”

To that end staff acquisition has been in full swing, with staff now reaching in excess of 400 and planned to attain the goal of six hundred swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at the UK base, the team are in the phase of finishing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are building the facility to produce the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – for now they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex organisation, at odds with the direction in F1 for greater centralisation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred.

NASA Model

“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” said Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how difficult it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”

So they have adopted, instead of the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all focusing on different aspects of the program in a different facilities.

“In a system where you follow a procedure where an issue arises and they report it to their supervisor, that leader talks to a leader in another department, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” notes Chester. “So we empower staff to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for each action is far more efficient and more rapid.”

What Lies Ahead

The effectiveness of this flexible strategy will be tested in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is no little amount riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta