A little more than twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last granted the green light as Formula One’s newest participant for the 2026 season. Building the team from nothing has entailed a intense pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One converges on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be held in the US, with around 100 days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the nascent team in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was established, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core ever since and enjoys a amused expression when considering the ride.
“There might be five minutes looking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in less than three years,’” he says. “Then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the iconic American Cadillac name, a factory team sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an Formula One team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you won't have the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”
With every day that goes by thoughts are sharper on the approaching critical moment in Australia and expectations are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented this year and while Chester shared this view he believed the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So that we turn up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation executing the proper actions on the track. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we want to show improvement after that.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Drive
In the summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their vast knowledge in operating at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas echoed the mood of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be probably a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. I believe with this setup, with these individuals, these people, it's entirely possible we won't be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with staff now up to in excess of 400 and intended to hit the goal of 600 members swiftly. In addition to their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of building an main base at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – until then they will use Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a intricate organization, contrary to the direction in the sport for more centralization, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred.
NASA Model
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said the team principal ahead of the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how tough it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all working on various components of the program at a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a process where an issue arises and they report it to their supervisor, that leader consults a leader in another department, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” explains the CTO. “Therefore we enable team members to handle things directly. Eliminating management approval for each action is much smoother and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this nimble approach will be tested in the pressure of racing next season and there is a considerable amount riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
