🔗 Share this article

Approximately one year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's latest entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from the ground up has required a frenetic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As the sport arrives on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.

The Tight Timeline to Melbourne

At the last event of the campaign to be held in the United States, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.

The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed project in March 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart from that point and enjoys a knowing grin when considering the ride.

“There might be a brief moment thinking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in under three years,’” he says. “And then the next minute you think: ‘Yes, there is still a great deal to do.’”

A Unique Opportunity

Chester had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the task of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.

“Creating an F1 team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you don’t get the chance to transform cultural approach.”

With every day that passes thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and expectations are being handled.

“It's reasonable to expect that any new team joining the grid is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented recently and while Nick Chester echoed this he thought the team had a statement to make as well.

“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So we show up and we operate well. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation performing the correct procedures on the race track. When we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate improvement after that.”

Racing Talent and Recruitment Push

In August they signed Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem notable for their invaluable experience in performing at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the mood of fighting spirit.

“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to finish last. I believe with this setup, with this team, this staff, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and achieve good results.”

To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with employees now at more than 400 and intended to hit the target of 600 members swiftly. Alongside their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the phase of building an headquarters at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the new engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, contrary to the direction in Formula One for more centralization, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred.

NASA Model

“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” stated the team principal ahead of the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we understand how tough it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”

So they have embraced, rather than the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of NASA's, where there were a range of specialist groups all focusing on various components of the mission across a multiple sites.

“In a system where you follow a process where an issue arises and they escalate it to their team leader, that supervisor talks to a manager somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” notes Nick Chester. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Avoiding hierarchical consent for all decisions is so much cleaner and quicker.”

The Future

The efficacy of this flexible strategy will be tested in the heat of competition next season and there is a considerable amount on the line for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta