A little more than one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from nothing has required a hectic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As Formula One descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the season finale of the campaign to be hosted in the United States, with around three months to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed operation in March 2023 shortly after it was created, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and enjoys a amused expression when thinking about the journey.
“You can have a short period thinking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Wow, how impressive what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the next minute you consider: ‘Well, we still have a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has truly matched the mission of launching the all-American Cadillac brand, a factory team supported by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Creating an grand prix team from the ground up, 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 chance to change organizational mindset.”
With each day that elapses minds are more focused on the looming critical moment in Melbourne and targets are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad joining the grid is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal commented earlier this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he felt the team had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So we arrive and we function efficiently. We want to show that we are a serious contender doing the right things on the circuit. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we want to show forward movement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Drive
In the summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a pair remarkable for their priceless expertise in competing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the mood of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to finish last. I believe given this organization, with this team, this staff, it's entirely possible we won't be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To that end recruitment has been in overdrive, with employees now up to over 400 and planned to hit the goal of 600 members rapidly. Alongside their present headquarters at the UK base, the team are in the phase of completing an HQ at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are building the center to build the power unit, scheduled for the 2029 season – for now they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organisation, different from the movement in F1 for increased consolidation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester alluded.
Apollo Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Lowdon ahead of the British GP in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we know how tough it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of specialist groups all focusing on distinct elements of the program across a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a process where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their manager, that supervisor consults a supervisor at a different location, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” explains the CTO. “We give authority to staff to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is so much cleaner and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this nimble approach will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a significant degree at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
