Just over a full year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately given the green light as F1's latest entrant for 2026. Constructing the squad from the ground up has entailed a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 descends on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be staged in the US, with around three months to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are cognizant there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the nascent project in March 2023 not long after it was established, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart since then and enjoys a wry smile when reflecting on the ride.
“You might get a brief moment looking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we have built in less than three years,’” he notes. “But then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yeah, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Task
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious seasons of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical development at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the mission of introducing the iconic American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the owner, GM, into Formula One.
“Establishing an F1 team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you don’t get the possibility to alter organizational mindset.”
With each day that goes by thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the looming moment of truth in Melbourne and expectations are being handled.
“One must presume that any new team coming in is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented recently and while Nick Chester shared this view he believed the squad had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So that we show up and we function efficiently. We want to show that we’re a proper team doing the correct procedures on the track. When we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Push
In August they contracted Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a duo remarkable for their vast knowledge in operating at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the mood of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he said. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe given this organization, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in full swing, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and scheduled to hit the goal of six hundred rapidly. Alongside their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the phase of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are building the center to produce the new engine, set for the 2029 season – for now they will run Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organisation, contrary to the movement in the sport for more centralization, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Chester referred.
Apollo Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” said the team principal just before the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how tough it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a decentralized management similar to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of project teams all working on distinct elements of the mission across a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a process where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their manager, that supervisor consults a leader in another department, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable people to really get on with it. Avoiding hierarchical consent for everything is so much cleaner and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this agile methodology will be proven in the pressure of racing next season and there is a considerable amount at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
