A little more than twelve months ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last given the go-ahead as Formula One’s newest entrant for the 2026 season. Building the team from scratch has involved a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be held in the US, with approximately a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are cognizant there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed project in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its center ever since and enjoys a amused expression when thinking about the ride.
“You can have a short period reflecting at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in under three years,’” he says. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Nick Chester had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the task of introducing the all-American Cadillac marque, a factory team sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Establishing an Formula One team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you don’t get the opportunity to change cultural approach.”
With each day that goes by thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the impending decisive point in Australia and expectations are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team entering the sport is going to be last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented recently and while the CTO shared this view he felt the team had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “In order that we turn up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender performing the correct procedures on the circuit. When we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on progression from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Effort
In late summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a duo remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the attitude of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be probably a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. I believe given this organization, with these individuals, these people, there is every reason that we can't manage to progress rapidly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in full swing, with employees now up to in excess of 400 and intended to hit the target of 600 quickly. Complementing their present headquarters at Silverstone, the squad are in the process of building an HQ at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to manufacture the power unit, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a intricate structure, different from the trend in the sport for more centralization, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Chester alluded.
Space Mission Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” stated Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how challenging it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Well, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, rather than the traditional management structure, a decentralized management similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of specialist groups all focusing on various components of the program in a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a process where an issue arises and they raise it up to their team leader, that manager communicates with a manager somewhere else, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says the CTO. “We give authority to staff to take charge. Eliminating management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this nimble approach will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is no little amount riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
