Just over twelve months in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as F1's newest participant for 2026. Establishing the organization from nothing has required a frenetic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the season to be staged in the US, with just over three months to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic project in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center ever since and has a amused expression when reflecting on the experience.
“You can have a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he says. “Then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical development at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the task of bringing the all-American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Establishing an Formula One team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you rarely get the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”
With each passing day that goes by thoughts are sharper on the approaching decisive point in Melbourne and expectations are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team coming in is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the team had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So that we turn up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team executing the right things on the race track. Once we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show improvement after that.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Push
In the summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for the 2026 season, a pair notable for their priceless expertise in competing at the front in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Bottas expressed the mood of combative optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. In my view with this setup, with this group, these people, it's entirely possible we won't be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with personnel now up to in excess of 400 and planned to reach the objective of 600 members swiftly. In addition to their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the phase of building an main base at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate organisation, different from the trend in the sport for increased consolidation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester alluded.
Apollo Model
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” stated Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in July. “We are pragmatic, we know 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, instead of the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of specialist groups all tackling distinct elements of the program in a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they report it to their manager, that leader communicates with a manager somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” explains the CTO. “We give authority to staff to really get on with it. Eliminating hierarchical consent for everything is far more efficient and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this agile methodology will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a considerable amount riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
