A little more than a full year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last given the official approval as Formula One’s most recent entry for 2026. Constructing the squad from the ground up has entailed a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be staged in the United States, with around a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent team in early 2023 soon after it was established, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart from that point and enjoys a amused expression when thinking about the experience.
“There might be five minutes reflecting at what you’ve done and say: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in under three years,’” he says. “Then the next minute you realize: ‘Yeah, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Chester achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the challenge of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a factory team sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Creating an Formula One team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you don’t get the chance to alter team culture.”
With each day that passes minds are more focused on the approaching moment of truth in Australia and expectations are being managed.
“You have to assume that any new team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal stated recently and while Nick Chester shared this view he thought the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So that we arrive and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender executing the correct procedures on the circuit. After we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on progression after that.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Drive
In late summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair notable for their vast knowledge in competing at the front in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver expressed the mood of determined optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a massive task to do, and it will likely be most likely a tough opening, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to finish last. In my view with this structure, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we can't manage to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in top gear, with personnel now up to in excess of 400 and intended to reach the target of 600 members rapidly. In addition to their present headquarters at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of finishing an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are developing the center to produce the power unit, planned for 2029 – until then they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate organisation, at odds with the direction in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which the CTO alluded.
NASA Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” said Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we know how tough it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of specialist groups all focusing on different aspects of the program across a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their manager, that leader consults a supervisor somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” says Chester. “We give authority to people to take charge. Moving away from hierarchical consent for each action is far more efficient and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a considerable amount riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
