Approximately one year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last granted the green light as Formula One’s newest participant for the 2026 season. Building the organization from the ground up has entailed a frenetic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be hosted in the America, with just over 100 days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic operation in March 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its core from that point and enjoys a wry smile when considering the journey.
“You can have five minutes looking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “Then the next minute you consider: ‘Yes, we still have a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical development at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has been quite like the task of bringing the all-American Cadillac name, a factory team supported by the owner, 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?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you won't have the chance to change organizational mindset.”
With every day that passes thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the impending critical moment in Melbourne and goals are being handled.
“One must presume that any incoming team coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal noted recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he thought the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So that we arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that we’re a proper team performing the proper actions on the track. After we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Effort
In the summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair notable for their priceless expertise in performing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver expressed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a massive task to do, and we expect most likely a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I am confident given this organization, with this group, these personnel, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in full swing, with employees now reaching more than 400 and scheduled to hit the goal of six hundred rapidly. In addition to their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the phase of completing an headquarters at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the center to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organization, different from the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred.
NASA Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon shortly before the British GP in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how challenging it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of project teams all working on different aspects of the mission across a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they report it to their team leader, that manager communicates with a manager somewhere else, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” says Nick Chester. “We give authority to people to handle things directly. Moving away from management approval for each action is much smoother and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this flexible approach will be proven in the heat of competition next season and there is no little amount at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
