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A little more than twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's newest participant for the 2026 season. Building the squad from the ground up has involved a hectic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.

The Race Against Time to Melbourne

At the final race of the campaign to be hosted in the America, with around 100 days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.

The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent operation in early 2023 shortly after it was established, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core ever since and gets a wry smile when thinking about the experience.

“There might be five minutes reflecting at what you’ve done and go: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “Then the next minute you think: ‘Yes, there is still a significant amount to do.’”

A Unique Opportunity

Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has quite compared with the mission of launching the iconic American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the owner, General Motors, into F1.

“Establishing an F1 team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you rarely get the possibility to transform team culture.”

With each passing day that elapses minds are more focused on the looming moment of truth in the Australian GP and expectations are being set realistically.

“You have to assume that any incoming team coming in is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon noted this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the organization had a reputation to build as well.

“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “In order that we turn up and we perform competently. We want to show that we’re a proper team executing the right things on the circuit. After we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we want to show progression from there on.”

Racing Talent and Team Building Push

In late summer they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem notable for their invaluable experience in competing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Bottas echoed the mood of determined optimism.

“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it’s going to be probably a tough opening, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. In my view with this structure, with this team, this staff, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”

To realize that ambition recruitment has been in top gear, with employees now at over 400 and planned to hit the objective of 600 rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at the UK base, the squad are in the process of completing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are building the facility to manufacture the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, at odds with the trend in F1 for increased consolidation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred to.

Space Mission Model

“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” said Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how tough it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”

So they have adopted, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all tackling different aspects of the program across a multiple sites.

“If you have to go through a process where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their manager, that leader talks to a leader at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” notes Chester. “We give authority to staff to handle things directly. Moving away from management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and quicker.”

What Lies Ahead

The effectiveness of this flexible methodology will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a significant degree at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta