A little more than a full year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the go-ahead as Formula One’s latest entry for 2026. Establishing the squad from the ground up has required a intense pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As the sport descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be staged 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 advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent project in early 2023 shortly after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart ever since and enjoys a wry smile when considering the ride.
“There might be a short period looking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in less than three years,’” Chester states. “And then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yeah, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in control of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the mission of launching the all-American Cadillac brand, a factory team backed by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Establishing an Formula One team from the ground up, 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 opportunity to alter organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that elapses thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the impending critical moment in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he believed the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “In order that we turn up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender doing the correct procedures on the track. After we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate improvement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Effort
In late summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their vast knowledge in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver expressed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I am confident given this organization, with this team, these personnel, there is every reason that we can't manage to advance swiftly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To that end recruitment has been in overdrive, with staff now at over 400 and planned to reach the target of six hundred swiftly. In addition to their present headquarters at the UK base, the organization are in the process of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to build the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the trend in F1 for more centralization, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred.
Space Mission Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” remarked the team principal ahead of the British GP in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how tough it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all working on various components of the project across a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a process where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their manager, that manager talks to a supervisor somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” notes Nick Chester. “So we empower people to handle things directly. Avoiding managerial sign-off for all decisions is far more efficient and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta
