Just over a full year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the green light as F1's latest entrant for 2026. Building the squad from scratch has required a frenetic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be staged in the United States, with just over 100 days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are cognizant there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in March 2023 shortly after it was created, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart ever since and has a wry smile when thinking about the experience.
“There might be a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the very next instant you think: ‘Yeah, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical direction at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has been quite like the challenge of introducing the iconic American Cadillac name, a works entry supported by the owner, General Motors, into F1.
“Creating an grand prix team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you rarely get the possibility to transform organizational mindset.”
With every day that goes by minds are sharper on the impending critical moment in the Australian GP and targets are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any incoming team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” the team principal commented this year and while Chester echoed this he felt the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So that we turn up and we operate well. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender doing the right things on the circuit. Once we prove that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate progression subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Push
In the summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a tandem notable for their priceless expertise in competing at the front in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver expressed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. In my view with this setup, with this group, these personnel, there’s no reason why we can't manage to get relatively quickly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with employees now up to over 400 and planned to hit the target of 600 members swiftly. Alongside their current base at the UK base, the organization are in the process of finishing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to build the power unit, set for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organisation, contrary to the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester alluded.
NASA Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we recognize how difficult it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all working on different aspects of the project in a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their supervisor, that leader talks to a leader in another department, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” says Nick Chester. “We give authority to people to really get on with it. Avoiding hierarchical consent for everything is far more efficient and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this nimble approach will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a considerable amount riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
