Approximately a full year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the official approval as the world of Formula One's most recent participant for 2026. Building the team from scratch has involved a intense operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As Formula One converges on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac understand the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the final race of the championship to be held in the US, with approximately 100 days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are aware there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent team in early 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core from that point and enjoys a knowing grin when thinking about the ride.
“You might get a short period looking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in less than three years,’” Chester states. “But then the very next instant you realize: ‘Well, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
Chester had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the challenge of launching the all-American Cadillac name, a works entry sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an F1 team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you rarely get the opportunity to transform cultural approach.”
With every day that passes thoughts are sharper on the approaching critical moment in the Australian GP and expectations are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he believed the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we turn up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender performing the correct procedures on the circuit. After we prove that our credentials are solid, then we want to show forward movement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Push
In August they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair notable for their invaluable experience in performing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas expressed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. I am confident with this structure, with these individuals, this staff, there’s no reason why we won't be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with personnel now at over 400 and planned to hit the objective of six hundred swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at Silverstone, the organization are in the phase of completing an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to produce the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organisation, different from the movement in F1 for increased consolidation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred to.
Apollo Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” stated the team principal just before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all working on various components of the mission across a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they report it to their team leader, that manager talks to a supervisor at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” says Nick Chester. “We give authority to people to take charge. Eliminating management approval for each action is far more efficient and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this flexible approach will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a considerable amount on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
