A little more than one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the green light as F1's most recent entrant for 2026. Constructing the team from nothing has involved a hectic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One descends on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the season to be hosted in the US, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic project in early 2023 shortly after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core since then and has a amused expression when reflecting on the experience.
“There might be a short period looking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “And then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
The CTO had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical development at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has been quite like the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a factory team backed by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an grand prix team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you rarely get the opportunity to transform organizational mindset.”
With each day that goes by minds are increasingly concentrated on the impending moment of truth in the Australian GP and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad coming in is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal commented recently and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we should be there,” he says. “So we show up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team doing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push
In August they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a duo remarkable for their priceless expertise in performing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and we expect almost certainly a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe with this setup, with this group, these people, it's entirely possible we won't be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in full swing, with employees now up to over 400 and planned to reach the target of 600 members rapidly. Alongside their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the process of completing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are developing the center to manufacture the power unit, set for 2029 – for now they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex structure, different from the trend in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Chester alluded.
Apollo Model
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Lowdon just before the British GP in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we understand how difficult it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the program in a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a process where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that supervisor consults a leader at a different location, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” notes Chester. “So we empower people to really get on with it. Moving away from hierarchical consent for all decisions is far more efficient and more rapid.”
The Future
The efficacy of this agile approach will be evaluated in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a considerable amount riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
