Approximately a full year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the go-ahead as F1's newest participant for the 2026 season. Building the squad from scratch has entailed a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the final race of the campaign to be staged in the United States, with around a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are aware there will not be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent project in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was created, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center since then and gets a amused expression when thinking about the ride.
“You might get five minutes reflecting at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “Then the next minute you consider: ‘Yes, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in command of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the challenge of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, GM, into F1.
“Building an grand prix team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you won't have the chance to change cultural approach.”
With every day that goes by minds are more focused on the impending critical moment in Australia and targets are being set realistically.
“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 accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Chester echoed this he thought the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So that we turn up and we operate well. We want to show that we are a serious contender executing the proper actions on the race track. When we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on progression after that.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Push
In the summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their vast knowledge in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to finish last. I am confident with this setup, with these individuals, these people, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To that end recruitment has been in overdrive, with staff now reaching more than 400 and intended to reach the objective of six hundred rapidly. Complementing their existing facility at Silverstone, the squad are in the process of completing an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to build the new engine, planned for 2029 – until then they will use Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex structure, different from the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Chester referred.
Apollo Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated the team principal just before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, rather than the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all working on various components of the project at a different facilities.
“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their team leader, that leader talks to a manager at a different location, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” explains Nick Chester. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Eliminating management approval for each action is much smoother and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a considerable amount at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
