A little more than one year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the official approval as Formula One’s latest entry for 2026. Establishing the team from the ground up has involved a intense work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 arrives on Vegas this race weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be staged in the America, with just over a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed project in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core ever since and enjoys a amused expression when considering the journey.
“You might get five minutes looking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Incredible, how impressive what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he says. “And then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Alonso's title-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical direction at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Establishing an grand prix team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the possibility to transform team culture.”
With every day that goes by focus are sharper on the looming critical moment in Melbourne and goals are being set realistically.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” the team principal noted this year and while Chester shared this view he thought the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender doing the proper actions on the circuit. When we prove that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on progression from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Push
In August they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair remarkable for their invaluable experience in competing at the front in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he said. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and we expect probably a difficult start, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I am confident with this setup, with this group, this staff, it's entirely possible we can't manage to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with personnel now up to in excess of 400 and planned to hit the goal of 600 members swiftly. Complementing their present headquarters at the UK base, the team are in the midst of building an main base at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are developing the facility to build the power unit, set for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, contrary to the movement in F1 for increased consolidation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred.
NASA Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” stated the team principal just before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we understand how challenging it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of project teams all tackling different aspects of the program in a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a process where an issue arises and they escalate it to their supervisor, that leader consults a manager somewhere else, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” explains Chester. “We give authority to people to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for all decisions is far more efficient and quicker.”
The Future
The success of this agile methodology will be tested in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is no little amount riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
