A little more than one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the official approval as Formula One’s newest participant for 2026. Constructing the organization from nothing has entailed a hectic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One converges on Vegas this weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the campaign to be held in the America, with around a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed operation in the spring of 2023 not long after it was formed, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core from that point and has a amused expression when considering the journey.
“You might get a short period looking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he notes. “But then the next minute you consider: ‘Well, there is still a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical development at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the mission of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a factory team backed by the parent company, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an Formula One team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you rarely get the opportunity to transform team culture.”
With each passing day that elapses thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the approaching moment of truth in the Australian GP and expectations are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any new team coming in is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal commented earlier this year and while Chester shared this view he felt the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So we arrive and we operate well. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender executing the proper actions on the track. Once we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate improvement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Drive
In August they contracted Checo Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo remarkable for their vast knowledge 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 fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We face a massive task to do, and we expect most likely a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to finish last. In my view with this setup, with these individuals, these people, there’s no reason why we won't be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To that end hiring has been in overdrive, with staff now up to more than 400 and intended to hit the objective of 600 members quickly. Complementing their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the midst of finishing an main base at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are building the facility to manufacture the power unit, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a complex structure, at odds with the trend in the sport for more centralization, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Chester referred to.
NASA Model
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” remarked the team principal shortly before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how tough it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all working on distinct elements of the mission at a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a procedure where an issue arises and they raise it up to their supervisor, that supervisor consults a manager in another department, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” says Nick Chester. “So we empower people to really get on with it. Avoiding management approval for all decisions is so much cleaner and quicker.”
The Future
The efficacy of this flexible approach will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a considerable amount on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
