Approximately twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the official approval as Formula One’s newest entry for the 2026 season. Building the team from the ground up has involved a frenetic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be hosted in the US, with approximately a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic team in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its center from that point and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the journey.
“You might get a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Incredible, how impressive what the team has created in under three years,’” Chester states. “And then the next minute you realize: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Task
Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's victorious years of 2005/2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the task of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a factory team supported by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Creating an grand prix team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you don’t get the possibility to alter cultural approach.”
With each day that elapses minds are more focused on the approaching decisive point in Melbourne and targets are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team joining the grid is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” the team principal commented recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he felt the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “In order that we turn up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team doing the correct procedures on the circuit. Once we prove that we’re really credible, then we will focus on progression after that.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Effort
In the summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair notable for their invaluable experience in performing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver echoed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and we expect most likely a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I am confident with this setup, with these individuals, these people, there is every reason that we can't manage to progress rapidly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with staff now up to in excess of 400 and scheduled to hit the objective of 600 swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of completing an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are building the facility to produce the power unit, set for the 2029 season – until then they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex organization, different from the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred.
NASA Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” remarked Lowdon ahead of the British GP in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we understand how challenging it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management similar to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all working on various components of the project in a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a process where an issue arises and they raise it up to their manager, that supervisor consults a supervisor somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” says Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable people to handle things directly. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is much smoother and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this nimble approach will be tested in the pressure of racing next season and there is a significant degree at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their development driver the young American Colton Herta
