Approximately a full year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's most recent participant for the 2026 season. Building the team from the ground up has required a hectic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As the sport descends on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac understand time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be hosted in the America, with approximately 100 days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent team in early 2023 not long after it was formed, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core from that point and has a wry smile when thinking about the ride.
“You can have five minutes looking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he says. “And then the following moment you consider: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac name, a factory team sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an grand prix team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you won't have the possibility to alter team culture.”
With each passing day that elapses thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the impending critical moment in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.
“One must presume that any new team coming in is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted recently and while Chester echoed this he thought the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “In order that we show up and we operate well. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender doing the right things on the circuit. After we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate progression subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Push
In August they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for the 2026 season, a duo notable for their invaluable experience in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we’re not there to finish last. I believe with this setup, with these individuals, these personnel, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To that end recruitment has been in overdrive, with personnel now reaching in excess of 400 and scheduled to hit the goal of 600 quickly. Alongside their current base at Silverstone, the team are in the process of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are developing the facility to build the new engine, planned for the 2029 season – for now they will use power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex organization, contrary to the trend in the sport for greater centralisation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Chester referred to.
NASA Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” remarked the team principal ahead of the British GP in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all focusing on different aspects of the project in a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a process where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their supervisor, that manager talks to a supervisor at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” explains Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to handle things directly. Eliminating hierarchical consent for all decisions is so much cleaner and quicker.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this flexible methodology will be proven in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a considerable amount riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
