A little more than twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the go-ahead as F1's latest entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from scratch has involved a hectic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be staged in the America, with around 100 days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic operation in the spring of 2023 not long after it was established, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart ever since and enjoys a amused expression when reflecting on the journey.
“You might get a brief moment looking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in less than three years,’” Chester states. “Then the next minute you consider: ‘Yes, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
The CTO had success at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the mission of bringing the all-American Cadillac brand, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, GM, into F1.
“Establishing an F1 team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you don’t get the chance to change team culture.”
With each day that elapses thoughts are more focused on the looming moment of truth in Australia and goals are being managed.
“One must presume 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 achievement in itself,” Lowdon noted this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the team had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So that we arrive and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Push
In August they recruited Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their invaluable experience in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas reflected the mood of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I believe with this setup, with this group, this staff, there’s no reason why we can't manage to get relatively quickly to the front and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with employees now at over 400 and scheduled to reach the target of six hundred swiftly. Complementing their current base at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of completing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to produce the power unit, set for the 2029 season – for now they will use power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, contrary to the trend in F1 for more centralization, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
Space Mission Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” stated the team principal just before the British GP in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how difficult it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all focusing on distinct elements of the program across a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a procedure where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor communicates with a supervisor at a different location, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” says Chester. “So we empower staff to really get on with it. Eliminating management approval for everything is much smoother and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this agile approach will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is no little amount riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the young American Colton Herta
