Approximately twelve months previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the go-ahead as Formula One’s latest entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from scratch has required a hectic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be staged in the United States, with just over 100 days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic operation in early 2023 not long after it was formed, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center since then and has a amused expression when reflecting on the journey.
“You can have five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we have built in less than three years,’” he notes. “But then the next minute you think: ‘Yeah, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Task
Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's title-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the task of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a works entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors, into F1.
“Creating an Formula One team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you won't have the opportunity to transform team culture.”
With each day that goes by minds are sharper on the looming critical moment in the Australian GP and targets are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon commented this year and while Chester echoed this he felt the team had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So we turn up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team doing the right things on the race track. Once we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we want to show forward movement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Drive
In the summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a pair remarkable for their vast knowledge in competing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas expressed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and we expect most likely a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I am confident given this organization, with these individuals, these personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To that end hiring has been in top gear, with employees now up to over 400 and intended to attain the objective of 600 rapidly. Complementing their present headquarters at Silverstone, the team are in the phase of completing an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are developing the center to manufacture the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organisation, different from the direction in F1 for increased consolidation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred to.
NASA Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” remarked the team principal shortly before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we understand how difficult it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, instead of the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the mission in a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a protocol where an issue arises and they report it to their manager, that manager talks to a manager at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” says Nick Chester. “We give authority to people to handle things directly. Eliminating hierarchical consent for all decisions is far more efficient and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this agile methodology will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is no little amount at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
