A little more than one year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the green light as the world of Formula One's latest entrant for 2026. Building the team from scratch has involved a intense operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 descends on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac understand the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the campaign to be hosted in the America, with around a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic operation in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart from that point and has a wry smile when considering the ride.
“There might be a brief moment looking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Wow, what an achievement what the team has created in less than three years,’” he notes. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Well, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has quite compared with the task of bringing the iconic American Cadillac name, a works entry sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into F1.
“Creating an F1 team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you rarely get the chance to alter team culture.”
With each day that passes focus are sharper on the approaching moment of truth in the Australian GP and goals are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any incoming team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal stated earlier this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he believed the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we turn up and we operate well. We want to show that we are a serious contender executing the right things on the circuit. After we prove that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate improvement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive
In the summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair remarkable for their invaluable experience in competing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Bottas expressed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be probably a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I am confident with this setup, with this team, these personnel, there’s no reason why we can't manage to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To that end hiring has been in full swing, with employees now reaching in excess of 400 and intended to attain the objective of 600 rapidly. Complementing their current base at the UK base, the organization are in the phase of completing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are developing the facility to manufacture the new engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, at odds with the movement in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester alluded.
NASA Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” stated Graeme Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how tough it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure similar to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all tackling various components of the mission at a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where an issue arises and they raise it up to their team leader, that manager communicates with a leader at a different location, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” explains Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for all decisions is far more efficient and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a considerable amount riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
