A little more than twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the go-ahead as Formula One’s latest entry for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from scratch has entailed a hectic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As Formula One arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be staged in the US, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are cognizant there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent project in early 2023 shortly after it was established, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its center ever since and enjoys a knowing grin when thinking about the ride.
“You might get a short period looking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he says. “Then the very next instant you realize: ‘Well, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's title-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical development at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the task of introducing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a factory team sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an grand prix team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you don’t get the chance to alter organizational mindset.”
With each day that passes focus are sharper on the looming decisive point in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted recently and while Chester echoed this he thought the team had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we should be there,” he says. “So we arrive and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team executing the correct procedures on the race track. After we prove that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression from there on.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Effort
In the summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a pair distinguished for their vast knowledge in operating at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Bottas expressed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he said. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I am confident given this organization, with this team, these people, it's entirely possible we won't be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To that end recruitment has been in top gear, with staff now at in excess of 400 and intended to attain the target of 600 rapidly. Complementing their present headquarters at the UK base, the team are in the phase of finishing an HQ at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to produce the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organization, at odds with the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred to.
Space Mission Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” said the team principal ahead of the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we recognize how challenging it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, instead of the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all tackling distinct elements of the mission at a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they report it to their manager, that supervisor consults a supervisor somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” notes Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to handle things directly. Eliminating management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and more rapid.”
The Future
The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be evaluated in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a significant degree riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
