A little more than a full year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the go-ahead as F1's newest entrant for 2026. Constructing the team from the ground up has required a intense operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One descends on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be staged in the America, with just over 100 days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed project in early 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart since then and enjoys a amused expression when considering the experience.
“You might get a short period reflecting at what you’ve done and say: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in less than three years,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you consider: ‘Well, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Chester achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's title-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the task of introducing the all-American Cadillac name, a works entry sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into F1.
“Establishing an F1 team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you rarely get the chance to transform team culture.”
With every day that goes by minds are increasingly concentrated on the approaching decisive point in Australia and expectations are being handled.
“You have to assume that any new team coming in is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal stated this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he felt the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “In order that we show up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation doing the right things on the track. Once we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression after that.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Drive
In August they recruited Sergio Perez and Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a duo notable for their priceless expertise in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he said. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be probably a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to finish last. In my view with this setup, with this team, these personnel, there is every reason that we won't be able to get relatively quickly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To that end recruitment has been in overdrive, with personnel now up to over 400 and scheduled to hit the goal of 600 quickly. In addition to their present headquarters at the UK base, the organization are in the phase of completing an HQ at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are developing the center to produce the new engine, set for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, different from the trend in the sport for more centralization, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred.
NASA Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said the team principal shortly before the Silverstone race in July. “We are pragmatic, we know how challenging it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Alright, 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 comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all working on distinct elements of the program in a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a protocol where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their supervisor, that leader communicates with a supervisor at a different location, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” says Chester. “We give authority to team members to take charge. Avoiding managerial sign-off for all decisions is much smoother and more rapid.”
The Future
The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be tested in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a significant degree at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
