A little more than one year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the green light as F1's newest entrant for 2026. Building the team from nothing has involved a frenetic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As Formula One descends on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be staged in the America, with approximately 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are aware there will not be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent operation in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center since then and enjoys a knowing grin when thinking about the journey.
“You can have five minutes looking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he says. “Then the very next instant you think: ‘Yes, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac brand, a factory team backed by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Building an Formula One team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you won't have the possibility to change organizational mindset.”
With each day that passes minds are sharper on the impending critical moment in Melbourne and goals are being managed.
“One must presume that any new team coming in is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the team had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So we arrive and we function efficiently. We want to show that we’re a proper team doing the proper actions on the track. After we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Push
In late summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe given this organization, with this group, these personnel, there’s no reason why we can't manage to advance swiftly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To that end recruitment has been in overdrive, with personnel now reaching over 400 and intended to reach the objective of 600 rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at Silverstone, the squad are in the midst of completing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the center to produce the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex structure, contrary to the movement in the sport for more centralization, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how tough it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all tackling distinct elements of the program across a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where an issue arises and they escalate it to their team leader, that leader communicates with a leader somewhere else, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” notes Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to really get on with it. Avoiding management approval for everything is much smoother and more rapid.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this flexible strategy will be evaluated in the pressure of racing next season and there is a considerable amount on the line for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta
