🔗 Share this article

A little more than one year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the go-ahead as F1's newest participant for 2026. Building the team from the ground up has entailed a frenetic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport descends on Vegas this race weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.

The Race Against Time to Melbourne

At the last event of the championship to be held in the America, with around three months to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are aware there will not be adequate time.

The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the nascent operation in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart from that point and has a amused expression when considering the ride.

“You might get five minutes thinking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we have built in less than three years,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you consider: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”

A One-of-a-Kind Challenge

Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's victorious years of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a works entry sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.

“Creating an grand prix team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you won't have the chance to alter cultural approach.”

With each passing day that elapses thoughts are sharper on the impending moment of truth in Melbourne and targets are being handled.

“It's reasonable to expect that any new team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted recently and while Chester echoed this he believed the organization had a point to prove as well.

“Our primary goal we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So that we show up and we operate well. We want to show that this is a professional operation performing the correct procedures on the race track. After we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we will focus on progression subsequently.”

Driver Lineup and Hiring Push

In late summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a duo remarkable for their invaluable experience in competing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver expressed the mood of combative optimism.

“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We face a massive task to do, and it’s going to be probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we’re not there to finish last. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, this staff, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to the front and taste victory.”

To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in top gear, with staff now up to in excess of 400 and planned to hit the target of 600 rapidly. In addition to their present headquarters at Silverstone, the organization are in the process of completing an HQ at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the center to manufacture the power unit, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate organization, different from the movement in F1 for more centralization, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred to.

Apollo Blueprint

“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” remarked the team principal ahead of the Silverstone race in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how difficult it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”

So they have implemented, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all focusing on distinct elements of the program in a different facilities.

“If you have to go through a protocol where an issue arises and they raise it up to their supervisor, that manager consults a leader at a different location, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” notes Nick Chester. “So we empower team members to really get on with it. Eliminating management approval for all decisions is much smoother and more rapid.”

What Lies Ahead

The efficacy of this agile methodology will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is no little amount on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta