A little more than twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the official approval as Formula One’s most recent entry for 2026. Building the organization from scratch has required a intense operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport converges on Vegas this weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be hosted in the United States, with approximately 100 days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic operation in March 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its core ever since and gets a wry smile when considering the ride.
“There might be a short period looking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he says. “But then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Nick Chester had success at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical development at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a factory team supported by the parent company, GM, into F1.
“Building an grand prix team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you won't have the chance to transform team culture.”
With each day that passes thoughts are sharper on the looming decisive point in Australia and expectations are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team coming in is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal commented this year and while the CTO echoed this he felt the team had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the race track. After we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive
In the summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a duo distinguished for their vast knowledge in competing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and we expect most likely a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, these personnel, there is every reason that we can't manage to progress rapidly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in full swing, with personnel now up to in excess of 400 and planned to reach the goal of 600 quickly. Alongside their current base at the UK base, the team are in the phase of building an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are developing the facility to produce the new engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex organisation, contrary to the trend in F1 for more centralization, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester alluded.
Apollo Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” remarked the team principal ahead of the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we know how tough it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of project teams all tackling different aspects of the mission across a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a protocol where an issue arises and they raise it up to their manager, that supervisor communicates with a supervisor somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” notes Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to handle things directly. Moving away from managerial sign-off for everything is far more efficient and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this agile approach will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a considerable amount riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta
