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Just over twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the green light as Formula One’s most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Building the organization from scratch has entailed a frenetic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac are aware time is getting tight.

The Countdown to Australia

At the last event of the campaign to be held in the United States, with around three months to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds 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 project in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core from that point and enjoys a wry smile when reflecting on the experience.

“You might get five minutes reflecting at what you’ve done and go: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the following moment you think: ‘Well, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”

A Unique Opportunity

Nick Chester had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious years of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the mission of launching the iconic American Cadillac marque, a factory team supported by the owner, General Motors, into Formula One.

“Building an F1 team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you rarely get the chance to change cultural approach.”

With each day that passes focus are increasingly concentrated on the approaching decisive point in Australia and goals are being managed.

“One must presume that any new team coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented this year and while the CTO shared this view he felt the organization had a point to prove as well.

“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So we show up and we operate well. We want to show that we’re a proper team performing the proper actions on the circuit. After we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate improvement after that.”

Racing Talent and Team Building Effort

In late summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in competing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.

“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and we expect probably a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to finish last. I believe given this organization, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”

To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in full swing, with employees now reaching in excess of 400 and scheduled to reach the objective of 600 swiftly. In addition to their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of completing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are developing the center to manufacture the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a complex organisation, contrary to the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO alluded.

NASA Inspiration

“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” said Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how difficult it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”

So they have embraced, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of specialist groups all tackling distinct elements of the project in a multiple sites.

“If you have to go through a protocol where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their manager, that supervisor talks to a manager in another department, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” explains the CTO. “We give authority to staff to take charge. Moving away from hierarchical consent for each action is far more efficient and more rapid.”

Upcoming Challenges

The effectiveness of this agile methodology will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is no little amount at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta