Approximately one year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the official approval as F1's latest entry for 2026. Constructing the squad from the ground up has entailed a frenetic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As the sport arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be staged in the United States, with around three months to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed operation in early 2023 soon after it was formed, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core from that point and has a wry smile when reflecting on the ride.
“There might be five minutes looking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the next minute you think: ‘Well, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the task of bringing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a factory team supported by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Establishing an grand prix team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you don’t get the opportunity to change cultural approach.”
With each day that elapses thoughts are sharper on the looming critical moment in the Australian GP and targets are being handled.
“One must presume that any incoming team coming in is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the team had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “In order that we turn up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender executing the right things on the circuit. When we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we want to show forward movement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Drive
In late summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a pair distinguished for their priceless expertise in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas echoed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and we expect probably a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe with this setup, with this team, these people, there’s no reason why we won't be able to advance swiftly to the front and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with employees now up to over 400 and scheduled to attain the goal of 600 swiftly. In addition to their present headquarters at Silverstone, the team are in the midst of building an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the facility to manufacture the new engine, planned for 2029 – until then they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex organisation, contrary to the movement in F1 for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred.
NASA Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how tough it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, instead of the traditional management structure, a decentralized management similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all tackling different aspects of the mission at a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a leader somewhere else, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” notes the CTO. “So we empower staff to handle things directly. Moving away from management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this agile approach will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is no little amount at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
