Approximately one year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the official approval as Formula One’s newest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from nothing has involved a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the championship to be staged in the US, with approximately three months to go before they make their debut for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed operation in March 2023 shortly after it was established, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart ever since and has a knowing grin when reflecting on the experience.
“There might be five minutes thinking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's title-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in command of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an Formula One team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you won't have the opportunity to alter team culture.”
With each day that goes by minds are increasingly concentrated on the looming moment of truth in Australia and goals are being handled.
“One must presume that any incoming team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal noted recently and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So that we show up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team executing the right things on the circuit. When we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on progression subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Effort
In the summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in operating at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the mood of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to finish last. I believe with this setup, with this team, these people, there is every reason that we won't be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To that end recruitment has been in full swing, with personnel now reaching over 400 and scheduled to attain the target of six hundred rapidly. Complementing their existing facility at the UK base, the team are in the phase of finishing an main base at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to build the 2029 engine, planned for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organization, contrary to the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred to.
Space Mission Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” remarked the team principal just before the British Grand Prix in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, rather than the traditional management structure, a decentralized management akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all working on different aspects 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 leader at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says the CTO. “We give authority to team members to take charge. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is much smoother and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta
