A little more than one year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last granted the official approval as Formula One’s newest participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from nothing has entailed a frenetic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac are aware time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be hosted in the United States, with approximately 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are cognizant there will not be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic project in March 2023 not long after it was established, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart since then and enjoys a knowing grin when thinking about the ride.
“There might be five minutes looking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in under three years,’” he notes. “Then the next minute you think: ‘Well, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical development at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the task of introducing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a works entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors, into F1.
“Building an F1 team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you don’t get the possibility to alter organizational mindset.”
With each day that elapses minds are sharper on the approaching critical moment in the Australian GP and goals are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal commented earlier this year and while Chester echoed this he felt the team had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So we turn up and we operate well. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation doing the right things on the race track. After we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate improvement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Drive
In August they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo distinguished for their invaluable experience in performing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the mood of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be probably a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. In my view with this setup, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we can't manage to advance swiftly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with personnel now reaching over 400 and planned to hit the goal of 600 rapidly. Complementing their present headquarters at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of building an HQ at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are building the center to produce the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, contrary to the direction in the sport for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred to.
Space Mission Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” remarked Lowdon ahead of the British GP in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we understand how tough it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all working on distinct elements of the mission in a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they report it to their manager, that supervisor talks to a supervisor somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” explains the CTO. “So we empower people to handle things directly. Avoiding hierarchical consent for everything is far more efficient and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this nimble approach will be proven in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a considerable amount riding on this for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
