Approximately a full year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the green light as Formula One’s most recent entry for the 2026 season. Building the team from scratch has involved a intense operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the season finale of the season to be hosted in the America, with around three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic team in early 2023 soon after it was established, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core from that point and has a knowing grin when reflecting on the experience.
“You might get a brief moment looking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we’ve done in less than three years,’” Chester states. “And then the next minute you consider: ‘Yes, there is still a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Chester achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a factory team backed by the parent company, GM, into Formula One.
“Creating an Formula One team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you won't have the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”
With each day that elapses focus are more focused on the approaching critical moment in Melbourne and targets are being handled.
“One must presume that any incoming team entering the sport is going to be last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the team had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So we arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation executing the correct procedures on the track. After we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Drive
In late summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem notable for their priceless expertise in operating at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the mood of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to finish last. I am confident with this structure, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we can't manage to advance swiftly to the front and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in full swing, with employees now at more than 400 and scheduled to hit the goal of 600 members quickly. Complementing their current base at Silverstone, the squad are in the midst of finishing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to produce the power unit, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will run power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a intricate organisation, different from the movement in the sport for more centralization, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which the CTO alluded.
NASA Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” said the team principal just before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how tough it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of specialist groups all tackling distinct elements of the program in a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their supervisor, that supervisor consults a supervisor in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” explains Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to take charge. Eliminating hierarchical consent for all decisions is much smoother and more rapid.”
The Future
The success of this flexible approach will be proven in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is no little amount riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta