A little more than twelve months previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the official approval as Formula One’s newest participant for 2026. Constructing the team from the ground up has required a intense pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One converges on Las Vegas this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
At the season finale of the campaign to be held in the US, with around three months to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent team in March 2023 shortly after it was created, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart from that point and gets a knowing grin when thinking about the journey.
“You can have five minutes thinking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we have built in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Well, we still have a great deal to do.’”
Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's title-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the mission of launching the iconic American Cadillac name, a works entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Creating an Formula One team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you don’t get the opportunity to alter organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that passes minds are increasingly concentrated on the impending moment of truth in the Australian GP and expectations are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any incoming team joining the grid is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” the team principal commented earlier this year and while the CTO shared this view he believed the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So that we show up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team doing the proper actions on the race track. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression subsequently.”
In August they contracted Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a tandem remarkable for their vast knowledge in operating at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas expressed the mood of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he said. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a tough opening, because it is F1. But we’re not there to finish last. In my view given this organization, with these individuals, this staff, there is every reason that we can't manage to get relatively quickly to the front and taste victory.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in full swing, with staff now at in excess of 400 and intended to attain the goal of 600 rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of completing an main base at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are constructing the plant to build the new engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a complex organisation, at odds with the movement in F1 for more centralization, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred to.
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” stated Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we recognize how difficult it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of specialist groups all tackling distinct elements of the mission across a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their team leader, that leader communicates with a leader in another department, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” explains Nick Chester. “We give authority to team members to take charge. Moving away from hierarchical consent for everything is far more efficient and faster.”
The effectiveness of this agile approach will be proven in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is no little amount at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
Maya Chen is a tech journalist and lifestyle blogger with over a decade of experience covering digital trends and cultural shifts.
