Just over a full year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last given the official approval as F1's most recent entrant for 2026. Constructing the organization from the ground up has entailed a frenetic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the season finale of the season to be hosted in the United States, with approximately a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent project in early 2023 not long after it was formed, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart ever since and gets a amused expression when considering the ride.
“You might get five minutes thinking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we have built in less than three years,’” he notes. “Then the very next instant you think: ‘Well, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Building an grand prix team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you won't have the possibility to transform team culture.”
With each day that goes by focus are sharper on the looming decisive point in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented recently and while Chester echoed this he thought the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “In order that we show up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation executing the right things on the circuit. After we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Drive
In August they recruited Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a pair remarkable for their vast knowledge in performing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he said. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I am confident with this structure, with this group, these people, it's entirely possible we won't be able to advance swiftly to the front and achieve good results.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in top gear, with personnel now up to over 400 and intended to reach the target of 600 rapidly. Complementing their current base at Silverstone, the team are in the midst of building an HQ at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the facility to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – until then they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the direction in F1 for greater centralisation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred.
Space Mission Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” said Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British GP in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we understand how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a decentralized management similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all working on different aspects of the program at a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they report it to their manager, that manager consults a supervisor somewhere else, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” says Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to really get on with it. Avoiding hierarchical consent for everything is far more efficient and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this flexible approach will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a considerable amount riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
