Just over one year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately given the go-ahead as Formula One’s newest entrant for the 2026 season. Building the organization from the ground up has required a frenetic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 descends on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be staged in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed operation in March 2023 shortly after it was established, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center from that point and gets a knowing grin when considering the experience.
“You might get a short period thinking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the next minute you think: ‘Yeah, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious seasons of the mid-2000s and was in charge of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has quite compared with the challenge of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Creating an F1 team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you won't have the chance to transform organizational mindset.”
With each day that elapses thoughts are sharper on the approaching decisive point in Melbourne and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad entering the sport is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon commented recently and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he says. “In order that we arrive and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender doing the proper actions on the circuit. When we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Drive
In late summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair notable for their invaluable experience in operating at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver expressed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. I am confident with this structure, with these individuals, these people, it's entirely possible we can't manage to progress rapidly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with personnel now at over 400 and planned to reach the target of 600 members swiftly. In addition to their existing facility at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of building an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to produce the power unit, set for the 2029 season – for now they will run power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a intricate structure, contrary to the direction in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” said the team principal ahead of the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how tough it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, instead of the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure akin to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of project teams all working on various components of the mission across a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a protocol where a challenge emerges and they report it to their team leader, that leader communicates with a manager at a different location, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” says Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable people to take charge. Avoiding hierarchical consent for all decisions is much smoother and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this flexible approach will be tested in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is no little amount on the line for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
