A little more than one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the official approval as the world of Formula One's latest entry for the 2026 season. Building the team from scratch has involved a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 arrives on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the season to be hosted in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are aware there will never 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 formed, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core since then and enjoys a wry smile when thinking about the experience.
“You might get five minutes reflecting at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what the team has created in less than three years,’” he says. “But then the very next instant you realize: ‘Well, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's title-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has quite compared with 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 F1 team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you don’t get the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”
With each day that passes minds are sharper on the looming critical moment in Australia and targets are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any incoming team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” the team principal noted earlier this year and while Chester shared this view he thought the organization had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So we arrive and we operate well. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team executing the right things on the track. When we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Push
In late summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a pair notable for their priceless expertise in competing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the mood of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and we expect probably a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I am confident given this organization, with these individuals, this staff, it's entirely possible we won't be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with employees now up to more than 400 and planned to reach the objective of six hundred rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at the UK base, the organization are in the process of completing an headquarters at Fishers in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are building the plant to manufacture the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex organisation, at odds with the trend in F1 for greater centralisation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Chester referred to.
Space Mission Model
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” said the team principal ahead of the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, instead of the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of project teams all working on various components of the project in a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a process where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their team leader, that supervisor talks to a manager at a different location, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” explains Chester. “We give authority to team members to really get on with it. Eliminating hierarchical consent for everything is much smoother and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this agile strategy will be tested in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is no little amount on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
