Just over a full year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the official approval as the world of Formula One's latest participant for 2026. Building the team from scratch has entailed a hectic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac are aware time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race 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 made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in March 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center ever since and enjoys a knowing grin when considering the experience.
“You can have a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Wow, how impressive what we have built in under three years,’” he notes. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Yeah, we still have a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical development at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the task of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the parent company, GM, into Formula One.
“Creating an grand prix team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the opportunity to change team culture.”
With each passing day that passes thoughts are more focused on the impending decisive point in Australia and goals are being handled.
“One must presume that any incoming team entering the sport is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he believed the squad had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So we arrive and we operate well. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation executing the proper actions on the track. Once we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show progression subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Drive
In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem notable for their priceless expertise in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver echoed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he said. “We have 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 we aren't joining to finish last. I believe given this organization, with this group, this staff, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in full swing, with employees now up to in excess of 400 and scheduled to reach the objective of six hundred quickly. In addition to their existing facility at Silverstone, the organization are in the process of building an main base at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are developing the center to manufacture the new engine, set for 2029 – for now they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex structure, contrary to the trend in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which the CTO alluded.
NASA Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” remarked the team principal shortly before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, rather than the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all focusing on various components of the project at a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a process where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their team leader, that supervisor talks to a manager at a different location, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” notes Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to handle things directly. Eliminating management approval for each action is far more efficient and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this nimble strategy will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is no little amount on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
