A little more than twelve months previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's newest entrant for 2026. Building the squad from scratch has entailed a frenetic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be held in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent operation in March 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center since then and has a wry smile when thinking about the ride.
“You might get five minutes looking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we have built in under three years,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you consider: ‘Well, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Task
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious years of 2005/2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the task of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a works entry backed by the parent company, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an Formula One team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you don’t get the opportunity to change cultural approach.”
With each passing day that elapses minds are more focused on the impending critical moment in Melbourne and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team coming in is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” the team principal commented recently and while the CTO shared this view he felt the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So that we arrive and we operate well. We want to show that we are a serious contender doing the right things on the race track. When we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we will focus on progression from there on.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Push
In the summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo distinguished for their invaluable experience in performing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Bottas expressed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to finish last. I am confident with this setup, with this group, these personnel, there is every reason that we won't be able to get relatively quickly to the front and taste victory.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in top gear, with staff now reaching in excess of 400 and scheduled to attain the goal of 600 rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at Silverstone, the organization are in the process of building an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are constructing the plant to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organization, contrary to the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred to.
Space Mission Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” said the team principal ahead of the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, rather than the traditional management structure, a decentralized management similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of project teams all tackling distinct elements of the program at a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a process where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their team leader, that leader talks to a leader in another department, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” notes Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to handle things directly. Eliminating hierarchical consent for all decisions is so much cleaner and faster.”
The Future
The success of this nimble methodology will be evaluated in the heat of competition next season and there is no little amount at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
