Approximately twelve months previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the official approval as Formula One’s most recent participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from nothing has required a frenetic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the campaign to be hosted in the America, with approximately three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed project in March 2023 not long after it was created, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and gets a knowing grin when considering the experience.
“You can have a brief moment thinking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in under three years,’” he notes. “Then the next minute you consider: ‘Well, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Task
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in command of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the mission of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a works entry sponsored by the parent company, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an grand prix team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you rarely get the opportunity to transform organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that goes by thoughts are sharper on the impending moment of truth in Australia and goals are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad joining the grid is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal noted this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he felt the squad had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So we arrive and we operate well. We want to show that we’re a proper team executing the correct procedures on the race track. When we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement after that.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Drive
In late summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their vast knowledge in competing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a massive task to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a difficult start, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I am confident with this setup, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we won't be able to advance swiftly to the front and taste victory.”
To that end hiring has been in full swing, with staff now at over 400 and planned to hit the goal of six hundred rapidly. In addition to their present headquarters at Silverstone, the team are in the phase of finishing an HQ at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the trend in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred.
Apollo Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” said the team principal shortly before the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we recognize how challenging it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, rather than the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all working on distinct elements of the mission at a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a procedure where an issue arises and they raise it up to their manager, that supervisor communicates with a leader in another department, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” explains Chester. “So we empower team members to handle things directly. Moving away from managerial sign-off for all decisions is much smoother and faster.”
The Future
The success of this agile strategy will be proven in the pressure of racing next season and there is a significant degree at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their reserve driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
