Approximately one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the green light as Formula One’s latest participant for 2026. Building the organization from the ground up has required a frenetic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport descends on Vegas this race weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be hosted 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 challenge, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic team in March 2023 not long after it was created, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core from that point and has a wry smile when considering the journey.
“You can have a short period thinking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Wow, how impressive what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he says. “But then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the task of introducing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a factory team supported by the owner, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Establishing an grand prix team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you won't have the possibility to change team culture.”
With each day that passes minds are more focused on the impending decisive point in Australia and expectations are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal commented earlier this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “In order that we turn up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation executing the proper actions on the circuit. After we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on improvement after that.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Effort
In August they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a tandem distinguished for their vast knowledge in operating at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe given this organization, with this group, this staff, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with personnel now reaching more than 400 and scheduled to attain the target of 600 quickly. In addition to their existing facility at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of finishing an HQ at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to produce the new engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – for now they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex structure, at odds with the direction in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred.
NASA Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Lowdon just before the British GP in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how tough it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of project teams all working on distinct elements of the project in a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a protocol where an issue arises and they report it to their manager, that supervisor consults a supervisor at a different location, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “Therefore we enable people to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for all decisions is much smoother and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this flexible methodology will be tested in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a considerable amount riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
