Just over a full year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as Formula One’s latest participant for 2026. Establishing the team from the ground up has involved a frenetic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be staged in the US, with just over 100 days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed project in March 2023 shortly after it was established, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center since then and has a amused expression when considering the journey.
“There might be five minutes looking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Wow, how impressive what we have built in under three years,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you think: ‘Well, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
The CTO had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical development at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has been quite like the task of bringing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the parent company, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an grand prix team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you won't have the chance to transform team culture.”
With every day that passes focus are sharper on the impending moment of truth in Australia and targets are being set realistically.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the squad had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So we turn up and we function efficiently. We want to show that we are a serious contender performing the proper actions on the track. Once we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on progression from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Drive
In late summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their priceless expertise in operating at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and we expect probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we’re not there to finish last. I am confident with this setup, with this group, these people, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to the front and achieve good results.”
To that end recruitment has been in top gear, with personnel now reaching in excess of 400 and intended to hit the objective of 600 members quickly. Alongside their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the phase of finishing an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the new engine, planned for 2029 – until then they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex organisation, at odds with the direction in the sport for increased consolidation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred.
NASA Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” remarked the team principal ahead of the Silverstone race in the summer. “We’re realistic, we understand how tough it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of NASA's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all tackling different aspects of the mission in a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they report it to their manager, that leader talks to a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says the CTO. “So we empower people to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for all decisions is so much cleaner and faster.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this agile approach will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a significant degree at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
