Approximately one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the official approval as F1's newest participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from nothing has involved a frenetic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One descends on Las Vegas this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be hosted in the US, with around three months to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are aware there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent team in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart ever since and has a amused expression when reflecting on the experience.
“You might get five minutes reflecting at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he says. “But then the following moment you realize: ‘Yeah, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Chester had success at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the task of bringing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an F1 team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you won't have the chance to change organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that goes by thoughts are sharper on the looming critical moment in Melbourne and goals are being managed.
“You have to assume that any incoming team coming in is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” the team principal stated recently and while Chester shared this view he thought the squad had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So we arrive and we function efficiently. We want to show that we’re a proper team doing the right things on the track. Once we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement after that.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Push
In August they signed Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their priceless expertise in operating at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the mood of determined optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. In my view given this organization, with this team, these people, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to the front and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in full swing, with employees now at more than 400 and planned to attain the objective of 600 members swiftly. In addition to their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the process of completing an headquarters at Fishers in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are building the plant to manufacture the power unit, set for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate organisation, contrary to the trend in F1 for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred.
NASA Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” stated the team principal shortly before the British Grand Prix in July. “We are pragmatic, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, rather than the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all focusing on different aspects of the program in a different facilities.
“When you must follow a process where someone has a problem and they report it to their team leader, that leader communicates with a manager in another department, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” explains the CTO. “Therefore we enable people to handle things directly. Avoiding hierarchical consent for everything is far more efficient and more rapid.”
The Future
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a considerable amount at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
