Just over twelve months ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the green light as Formula One’s newest participant for the 2026 season. Building the squad from nothing has involved a intense work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 converges on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be held in the America, with approximately 100 days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent operation in early 2023 shortly after it was established, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core ever since and enjoys a knowing grin when thinking about the experience.
“You might get a brief moment looking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you consider: ‘Well, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the task of introducing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Establishing an F1 team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you rarely get the chance to alter cultural approach.”
With each passing day that goes by thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the approaching decisive point in Australia and expectations are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team entering the sport is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal noted recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the team had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So we turn up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the track. After we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show improvement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Push
In August they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in operating at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I believe given this organization, with this team, these personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to the front and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in full swing, with employees now at over 400 and scheduled to reach the target of 600 quickly. In addition to their existing facility at Silverstone, the squad are in the midst of building an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to produce the power unit, set for 2029 – until then they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex organization, different from the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Chester referred to.
NASA Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” stated Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how tough it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, instead of the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of project teams all tackling various components of the program in a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a protocol where an issue arises and they raise it up to their team leader, that supervisor communicates with a manager in another department, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” explains the CTO. “So we empower team members to take charge. Avoiding hierarchical consent for everything is much smoother and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be evaluated in the pressure of racing next season and there is no little amount riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
