Approximately twelve months in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the green light as F1's latest participant for 2026. Establishing the team from nothing has entailed a frenetic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the championship to be hosted in the United States, with just over three months to go before they make their debut for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent team in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its center from that point and enjoys a amused expression when thinking about the ride.
“There might be five minutes reflecting at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we have built in less than three years,’” Chester states. “And then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a factory team supported by the corporate entity, GM, into F1.
“Creating an Formula One team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you don’t get the chance to alter cultural approach.”
With every day that goes by minds are more focused on the looming moment of truth in Australia and goals are being handled.
“You have to assume 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,” the team principal noted recently and while the CTO echoed this he felt the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So we show up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender executing the right things on the race track. When we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we will focus on forward movement after that.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Effort
In the summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a duo remarkable for their priceless expertise in performing at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas expressed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We face a mountain of work to do, and we expect probably a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. In my view with this setup, with these individuals, these people, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to the front and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in full swing, with employees now up to over 400 and intended to hit the goal of 600 swiftly. Alongside their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the process of finishing an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are building the center to manufacture the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate structure, different from the trend in the sport for increased consolidation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO alluded.
Apollo Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” remarked the team principal shortly before the British GP in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how challenging it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, instead of the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all working on distinct elements of the mission at a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a protocol where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their manager, that manager talks to a manager in another department, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” notes Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to handle things directly. Eliminating management approval for all decisions is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this agile approach will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is no little amount riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
