A little more than a full year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as F1's newest entry for 2026. Building the team from scratch has involved a frenetic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be held in the United States, with around a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are cognizant there will not be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent operation in March 2023 not long after it was created, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its center from that point and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the ride.
“You can have a brief moment thinking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you think: ‘Yeah, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical development at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has been quite like the mission of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Creating an Formula One team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you won't have the opportunity to alter team culture.”
With every day that passes focus are increasingly concentrated on the approaching critical moment in Australia and expectations are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad joining the grid is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” the team principal stated recently and while Chester echoed this he believed the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So we turn up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team doing the right things on the circuit. When we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we will focus on progression subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Push
In the summer they signed Checo Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair notable for their vast knowledge in operating at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and we expect probably a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I believe given this organization, with these individuals, this staff, it's entirely possible we can't manage to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in full swing, with staff now reaching over 400 and intended to hit the objective of 600 members rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of completing an HQ at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to manufacture the new engine, set for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated structure, contrary to the movement in the sport for increased consolidation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred to.
Space Mission Model
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how difficult it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure akin to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of project teams all focusing on distinct elements of the project at a different facilities.
“When you must follow a process where an issue arises and they raise it up to their supervisor, that supervisor consults a manager at a different location, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” says Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to really get on with it. Avoiding hierarchical consent for all decisions is much smoother and faster.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this nimble approach will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is no little amount on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta
