Approximately a full year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the green light as Formula One’s latest entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from scratch has entailed a intense operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport arrives on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the season to be hosted in the United States, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural 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 task, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed project in early 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center since then and has a wry smile when thinking about the journey.
“There might be a short period thinking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we’ve done in under three years,’” he says. “But then the very next instant you realize: ‘Well, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Nick Chester had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has quite compared with the mission of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors, into F1.
“Creating an F1 team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you won't have the chance to alter organizational mindset.”
With each day that passes thoughts are sharper on the impending decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he believed the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So that we show up and we operate well. We want to show that we are a serious contender executing the right things on the race track. Once we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Drive
In late summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for the 2026 season, a pair distinguished for their invaluable experience in performing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver echoed the mood of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I am confident with this setup, with these individuals, this staff, it's entirely possible we can't manage to advance swiftly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in full swing, with staff now at more than 400 and intended to hit the target of 600 members rapidly. Alongside their existing facility at Silverstone, the organization are in the process of completing an headquarters at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a intricate organization, different from the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred.
Apollo Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British GP in July. “We are pragmatic, we understand how difficult it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all working on different aspects of the project in a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their team leader, that supervisor consults a leader somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” notes Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable people to take charge. Eliminating managerial sign-off for each action is far more efficient and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this nimble methodology will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a considerable amount on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
