Just over twelve months previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the green light as Formula One’s most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from the ground up has involved a hectic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be held in the United States, with around a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent operation in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center ever since and has a wry smile when reflecting on the ride.
“You might get a brief moment reflecting at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he says. “But then the next minute you consider: ‘Yes, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the task of introducing the all-American Cadillac marque, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you rarely get the opportunity to alter organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that elapses minds are more focused on the impending moment of truth in Melbourne and goals are being handled.
“One must presume that any new team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” the team principal noted this year and while Chester echoed this he thought the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So that we show up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender doing the right things on the track. Once we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we want to show improvement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Effort
In August they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in operating at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Bottas expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a tough opening, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to finish last. In my view with this structure, with this group, these personnel, it's entirely possible we can't manage to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with employees now reaching more than 400 and intended to reach the target of six hundred quickly. In addition to their existing facility at Silverstone, the squad are in the midst of building an main base at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are constructing the plant to build the power unit, set for 2029 – until then they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, contrary to the movement in F1 for increased consolidation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred to.
Apollo Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” remarked the team principal shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we understand how challenging it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all tackling various components of the project in a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they report it to their team leader, that supervisor consults a manager somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” notes the CTO. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Moving away from hierarchical consent for everything is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this flexible approach will be proven in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a considerable amount at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta
