A little more than twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the go-ahead as Formula One’s latest participant for the 2026 season. Building the squad from nothing has required a intense work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One descends on Las Vegas this weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the campaign to be hosted in the America, with approximately a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic team in the spring of 2023 not long after it was created, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and enjoys a knowing grin when considering the journey.
“You can have a brief moment thinking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Wow, what an achievement what the team has created in under three years,’” he says. “And then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical direction at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has been quite like the mission of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a works entry sponsored by the owner, GM, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you rarely get the chance to alter cultural approach.”
With each passing day that goes by minds are sharper on the approaching decisive point in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.
“You have to assume that any incoming team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” the team principal stated this year and while the CTO echoed this he believed the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “In order that we show up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team performing the right things on the race track. After we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we want to show progression subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Push
In the summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem notable for their vast knowledge in competing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver echoed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and we expect almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I believe with this structure, with this group, these people, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with staff now reaching more than 400 and scheduled to hit the goal of 600 members quickly. Complementing their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the process of completing an main base at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are building the facility to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organisation, at odds with the trend in F1 for increased consolidation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Chester alluded.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” stated Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of specialist groups all focusing on different aspects of the program at a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a procedure where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their supervisor, that manager consults a manager somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” says Chester. “We give authority to staff to really get on with it. Moving away from hierarchical consent for everything is so much cleaner and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this flexible strategy will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a considerable amount at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
