Approximately twelve months previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the go-ahead as Formula One’s most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from nothing has entailed a intense pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport converges on Vegas this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the season to be held in the America, with approximately 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed project in March 2023 not long after it was formed, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center ever since and has a knowing grin when considering the ride.
“There might be five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Amazing, how impressive what the team has created in under three years,’” he says. “But then the next minute you realize: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has truly matched the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors, into F1.
“Establishing an F1 team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you don’t get the possibility to transform cultural approach.”
With every day that passes minds are more focused on the approaching moment of truth in Australia and goals are being managed.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” the team principal noted earlier this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he believed the team had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we show up and we function efficiently. We want to show that we are a serious contender performing the proper actions on the track. Once we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate progression subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Effort
In August they contracted Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair remarkable for their vast knowledge in performing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the mood of determined optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We have a massive task to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to finish last. I believe given this organization, with this group, these personnel, there is every reason that we can't manage to get relatively quickly to the front and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in overdrive, with employees now up to in excess of 400 and intended to attain the target of 600 swiftly. Complementing their current base at Silverstone, the squad are in the midst of completing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are building the facility to produce the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will run power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, contrary to the trend in the sport for increased consolidation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” remarked Lowdon just before the British GP in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how difficult it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, rather than the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of project teams all working on distinct elements of the program in a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a protocol where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their manager, that leader talks to a leader in another department, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” says Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is far more efficient and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a considerable amount at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
