Just over one year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's latest entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from nothing has required a hectic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport descends on Vegas this race weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be staged in the America, with just over a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent operation in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core since then and gets a wry smile when considering the ride.
“There might be five minutes looking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Wow, how impressive what we’ve done in under three years,’” he says. “Then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious seasons of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical development at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the mission of bringing the all-American Cadillac brand, a factory team supported by the owner, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an Formula One team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you rarely get the possibility to alter organizational mindset.”
With each day that goes by thoughts are sharper on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being handled.
“You have to assume that any new team coming in is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented this year and while the CTO shared this view he felt the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he says. “So that we arrive and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team performing the proper actions on the track. After we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate improvement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive
In the summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a duo notable for their priceless expertise in operating at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver echoed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and we expect almost certainly a tough opening, because it is F1. But we’re not there to finish last. In my view with this setup, with this group, these personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in full swing, with personnel now reaching over 400 and intended to attain the goal of 600 rapidly. In addition to their present headquarters at the UK base, the organization are in the process of building an HQ at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the new engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organization, contrary to the trend in the sport for greater centralisation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which the CTO alluded.
NASA Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” remarked Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Well, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, instead of the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all focusing on various components of the program at a different facilities.
“When you must follow a process where a challenge emerges and they report it to their team leader, that supervisor talks to a supervisor somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” says Chester. “We give authority to people to take charge. Moving away from hierarchical consent for all decisions is so much cleaner and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this agile methodology will be evaluated in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is no little amount on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
