Just over twelve months previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the green light as F1's most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from nothing has involved a frenetic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport arrives on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be hosted in the America, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic operation in the spring of 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart since then and enjoys a wry smile when thinking about the ride.
“You might get a brief moment thinking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in under three years,’” he says. “And then the following moment you consider: ‘Well, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in Alonso's title-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the challenge of launching the iconic American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Establishing an Formula One team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you don’t get the possibility to change team culture.”
With each passing day that elapses thoughts are more focused on the looming decisive point in Melbourne and goals are being managed.
“One must presume that any new team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while the CTO shared this view he thought the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate 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 are a serious contender executing the correct procedures on the race track. After we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate progression subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Drive
In August they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for the 2026 season, a pair distinguished for their invaluable experience in operating at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, this staff, there’s no reason why we can't manage to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To that end recruitment has been in overdrive, with personnel now reaching in excess of 400 and intended to hit the target of 600 members quickly. In addition to their existing facility at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of finishing an HQ at Fishers in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the center to produce the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, different from the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Chester referred.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” said Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how difficult it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, rather than the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all focusing on distinct elements of the mission in a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they report it to their manager, that supervisor consults a manager somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” says Nick Chester. “So we empower team members to handle things directly. Avoiding management approval for each action is far more efficient and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this flexible strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a significant degree at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the young American Colton Herta
