Approximately one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the official approval as the world of Formula One's latest entrant for 2026. Building the organization from the ground up has required a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be hosted in the United States, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed project in early 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core since then and gets a amused expression when reflecting on the journey.
“You can have a brief moment thinking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in under three years,’” he says. “Then the very next instant you consider: ‘Well, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Chester achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious years of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical direction at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the mission of launching the iconic American Cadillac marque, a factory team supported by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Building an grand prix team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you won't have the possibility to alter team culture.”
With each day that goes by thoughts are sharper on the looming moment of truth in Melbourne and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team entering the sport is going to be last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal commented earlier this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the team had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So we show up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender executing the proper actions on the race track. When we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on improvement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Drive
In August they recruited Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the mood of determined optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to finish last. In my view given this organization, with these individuals, this staff, it's entirely possible we can't manage to get relatively quickly to the front and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with staff now reaching more than 400 and scheduled to hit the goal of 600 swiftly. Alongside their existing facility at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of completing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are developing the center to manufacture the new engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, contrary to the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” said Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in July. “We’re realistic, we recognize how tough it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all tackling various components of the mission in a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a procedure where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor consults a leader at a different location, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” explains Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to take charge. Eliminating management approval for each action is far more efficient and faster.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this nimble methodology will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a considerable amount at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
