Approximately one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the official approval as Formula One’s newest participant for 2026. Establishing the team from nothing has entailed a frenetic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 converges on Las Vegas this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be held in the US, with around three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed project in early 2023 soon after it was created, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart from that point and enjoys a amused expression when considering the experience.
“You might get a brief moment reflecting at what you’ve done and say: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we have built in less than three years,’” Chester states. “And then the following moment you consider: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Chester had success at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical development at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the challenge of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a factory team sponsored by the parent company, GM, into Formula One.
“Establishing an Formula One team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you won't have the chance to transform cultural approach.”
With each day that passes minds are more focused on the impending critical moment in Australia and expectations are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any incoming team coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he felt the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So that we turn up and we function efficiently. We want to show that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the race track. After we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Push
In August they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a duo distinguished for their vast knowledge in operating at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I am confident with this setup, with these individuals, these people, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in top gear, with employees now up to over 400 and planned to attain the goal of 600 members swiftly. In addition to their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the phase of finishing an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are building the center to build the power unit, planned for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organization, at odds with the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Chester referred.
NASA Blueprint
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” said the team principal just before the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we know how difficult it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all focusing on different aspects of the mission in a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their manager, that manager consults a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” notes Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable people to handle things directly. Eliminating managerial sign-off for all decisions is much smoother and faster.”
The Future
The success of this nimble methodology will be proven in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a significant degree at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
