Approximately one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the official approval as Formula One’s latest entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from the ground up has entailed a frenetic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As the sport descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be staged in the America, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic operation in early 2023 shortly after it was established, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center since then and gets a amused expression when thinking about the experience.
“There might be five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “But then the following moment you consider: ‘Yes, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in command of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the challenge of introducing the iconic American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the corporate entity, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an Formula One team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you won't have the possibility to change team culture.”
With each day that goes by focus are sharper on the approaching decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team entering the sport is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal noted recently and while Nick Chester echoed this he believed the organization had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he says. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation executing the proper actions on the track. After we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on progression from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Effort
In late summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a duo remarkable for their priceless expertise in performing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be probably a difficult start, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I am confident given this organization, with this team, these personnel, it's entirely possible we won't be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To that end hiring has been in overdrive, with personnel now at more than 400 and planned to attain the target of 600 quickly. Alongside their current base at the UK base, the team are in the midst of finishing an HQ at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are developing the facility to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – for now they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex structure, at odds with the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Chester referred.
Apollo Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” remarked Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how challenging it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, instead of the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all working on distinct elements of the program across a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they report it to their team leader, that leader consults a supervisor at a different location, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” says the CTO. “We give authority to people to really get on with it. Eliminating hierarchical consent for each action is far more efficient and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this flexible strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a considerable amount on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta
