Just over one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the go-ahead as F1's latest entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from scratch has entailed a hectic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be staged in the US, with around three months to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic operation in early 2023 soon after it was established, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart since then and has a amused expression when reflecting on the ride.
“You might get five minutes looking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he says. “But then the next minute you realize: ‘Yeah, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the task of bringing the all-American Cadillac name, a factory team backed by the owner, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an grand prix team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you don’t get the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”
With each day that elapses minds are more focused on the looming moment of truth in Australia and targets are being handled.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad coming in is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal stated recently and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the organization had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we arrive and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender doing the right things on the race track. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we will focus on progression after that.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Drive
In August they signed Checo Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their invaluable experience in competing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We have a massive task to do, and we expect almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we’re not there to stay at the back. In my view given this organization, with these individuals, these people, there’s no reason why we won't be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in full swing, with staff now at in excess of 400 and scheduled to attain the target of six hundred swiftly. In addition to their current base at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of building an headquarters at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are developing the facility to manufacture the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will run Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex structure, contrary to the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester alluded.
NASA Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how challenging it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all tackling distinct elements of the mission at a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a process where an issue arises and they report it to their manager, that supervisor talks to a leader in another department, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” notes Chester. “Therefore we enable people to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for each action is far more efficient and quicker.”
The Future
The efficacy of this flexible strategy will be tested in the pressure of racing next season and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
