Just over a full year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the official approval as F1's latest participant for 2026. Establishing the organization from nothing has involved a frenetic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be hosted in the US, with just over 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the nascent operation in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was established, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart since then and has a knowing grin when thinking about the experience.
“There might be a short period thinking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Wow, what an achievement what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he says. “Then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yes, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Nick Chester had success at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the challenge of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Building an Formula One team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you won't have the opportunity to alter team culture.”
With each passing day that passes focus are more focused on the impending critical moment in the Australian GP and goals are being handled.
“You have to assume that any new team entering the sport is going to be last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while Nick Chester shared this view he thought the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So that we arrive and we operate well. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation executing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Push
In the summer they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo distinguished for their priceless expertise in competing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We face a mountain of work to do, and we expect probably a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. In my view given this organization, with this group, these personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To that end recruitment has been in full swing, with employees now reaching over 400 and scheduled to reach the objective of 600 swiftly. Complementing their present headquarters at Silverstone, the squad are in the midst of building an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are developing the facility to produce the new engine, set for 2029 – for now they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester alluded.
Apollo Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” stated the team principal shortly before the British GP in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we know how difficult it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of project teams all working on distinct elements of the program at a different facilities.
“When you must follow a process where someone has a problem and they report it to their team leader, that supervisor consults a supervisor at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” explains Chester. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Eliminating management approval for each action is far more efficient and more rapid.”
The Future
The efficacy of this flexible strategy will be tested in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is no little amount riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
