Just over twelve months previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the official approval as the world of Formula One's most recent entry for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from nothing has required a frenetic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One descends on Las Vegas this weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the campaign to be hosted in the America, with approximately a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed operation in early 2023 soon after it was established, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart from that point and gets a amused expression when considering the experience.
“There might be a short period looking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in under three years,’” he says. “Then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the task of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a works entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Creating an Formula One team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you don’t get the opportunity to change cultural approach.”
With each passing day that goes by thoughts are more focused on the looming moment of truth in the Australian GP and targets are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad coming in is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented this year and while Chester shared this view he felt the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender executing the correct procedures on the race track. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we will focus on progression subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Drive
In late summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a tandem distinguished for their vast knowledge in competing at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and it’s going to be probably a tough opening, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. In my view with this setup, with these individuals, this staff, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in full swing, with personnel now reaching over 400 and planned to reach the objective of six hundred rapidly. Complementing their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the phase of completing an main base at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are developing the plant to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – until then they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a complex organisation, different from the movement in F1 for more centralization, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester alluded.
Apollo Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” remarked Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how challenging it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all working on different aspects of the project in a different facilities.
“When you must follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they report it to their supervisor, that leader consults a leader in another department, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” notes Chester. “We give authority to team members to take charge. Eliminating management approval for each action is far more efficient and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this agile strategy will be evaluated in the heat of competition next season and there is no little amount at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
