A little more than one year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the green light as the world of Formula One's newest entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from the ground up has entailed a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the season finale of the championship to be staged in the United States, with around a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed operation in early 2023 shortly after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart from that point and has a knowing grin when considering the experience.
“You might get five minutes reflecting at what you’ve done and say: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he says. “Then the next minute you think: ‘Yeah, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical development at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the challenge of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Building an Formula One team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you won't have the opportunity to change organizational mindset.”
With every day that elapses focus are more focused on the impending decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he felt the squad had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So we turn up and we operate well. We want to show that this is a professional operation executing the correct procedures on the track. Once we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Drive
In late summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a pair remarkable for their vast knowledge in operating at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a tough opening, 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 this group, this staff, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in full swing, with employees now reaching more than 400 and planned to hit the goal of 600 rapidly. In addition to their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the process of building an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are building the center to manufacture the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate structure, at odds with the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which the CTO alluded.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” said the team principal just before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we know how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. OK, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of project teams all focusing on distinct elements of the program across a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a procedure where someone has a problem and they report it to their team leader, that supervisor consults a manager in another department, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” notes Chester. “We give authority to staff to handle things directly. Avoiding hierarchical consent for each action is far more efficient and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is no little amount riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
