Approximately twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the green light as F1's most recent entry for the 2026 season. Building the team from the ground up has required a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be held in the United States, with around three months to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent team in March 2023 shortly after it was created, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center since then and has a amused expression when reflecting on the ride.
“There might be five minutes looking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we have built in under three years,’” Chester states. “And then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's victorious years of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical direction at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has truly matched the challenge of launching the iconic American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Creating an F1 team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you rarely get the opportunity to alter team culture.”
With every day that goes by thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the looming decisive point in Australia and expectations are being managed.
“One must presume that any incoming team coming in is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team performing the correct procedures on the track. After we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we want to show improvement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Drive
In late summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their invaluable experience in operating at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver echoed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we’re not there to stay at the back. In my view with this setup, with this group, this staff, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To that end recruitment has been in top gear, with employees now reaching more than 400 and scheduled to hit the objective of 600 rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the midst of completing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are building the facility to manufacture the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organization, at odds with the trend in the sport for greater centralisation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester alluded.
NASA Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” remarked the team principal just before the British GP in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we know how difficult it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, instead of the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all focusing on various components of the mission across a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a process where an issue arises and they escalate it to their supervisor, that leader talks to a manager in another department, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” says Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to really get on with it. Moving away from management approval for each action is far more efficient and more rapid.”
The Future
The success of this nimble approach will be evaluated in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a considerable amount on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
