Just over one year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the go-ahead as Formula One’s newest participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from the ground up has involved a hectic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As Formula One converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the campaign to be held in the United States, with around 100 days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed team in the spring of 2023 soon after it was formed, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart ever since and gets a wry smile when considering the experience.
“There might be a brief moment thinking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what the team has created in under three years,’” Chester states. “But then the next minute you think: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in charge of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the challenge of launching the all-American Cadillac brand, a factory team sponsored by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Establishing an grand prix team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you don’t get the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”
With each passing day that goes by thoughts are sharper on the impending critical moment in Melbourne and targets are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he thought the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we turn up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team performing the proper actions on the race track. After we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show forward movement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Drive
In the summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a duo notable for their invaluable experience in performing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver expressed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. In my view with this structure, with this group, these personnel, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To that end recruitment has been in overdrive, with employees now reaching more than 400 and intended to hit the goal of six hundred rapidly. Complementing their present headquarters at Silverstone, the organization are in the process of finishing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the center to produce the power unit, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate structure, contrary to the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred to.
Space Mission Model
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in July. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how difficult it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of project teams all working on various components of the project in a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their manager, that manager talks to a supervisor somewhere else, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” says Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to handle things directly. Eliminating managerial sign-off for everything is far more efficient and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is no little amount on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
