Approximately one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the official approval as the world of Formula One's latest entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from nothing has entailed a intense work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As F1 converges on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac understand the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be staged in the America, with approximately three months to go before they make their debut for the first time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in March 2023 not long after it was established, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core since then and has a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“You can have a brief moment reflecting at what you’ve done and go: ‘Wow, how impressive what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he notes. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Yes, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious seasons of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the task of introducing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a factory team sponsored by the parent company, GM, into F1.
“Establishing an Formula One team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you rarely get the possibility to alter organizational mindset.”
With every day that elapses minds are sharper on the looming decisive point in Australia and goals are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal commented this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment 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,” he says. “So we show up and we operate well. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team executing the right things on the track. Once we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate improvement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Drive
In late summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in operating at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Bottas echoed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be most likely a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to finish last. I am confident with this structure, with this group, these personnel, there is every reason that we won't be able to get relatively quickly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in full swing, with personnel now reaching more than 400 and planned to reach the goal of 600 rapidly. Alongside their current base at Silverstone, the organization are in the midst of finishing an HQ at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to build the power unit, set for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex structure, contrary to the direction in F1 for increased consolidation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred to.
NASA Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how difficult it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Well, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, instead of the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all focusing on distinct elements of the project in a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where an issue arises and they escalate it to their supervisor, that manager consults a supervisor somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” explains Chester. “So we empower staff to really get on with it. Eliminating management approval for everything is much smoother and faster.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this agile strategy will be tested in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is no little amount at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
