Just over one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the green light as Formula One’s newest entrant for the 2026 season. Building the team from nothing has involved a frenetic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the season finale of the season to be held in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they take to the track 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 aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic operation in early 2023 shortly after it was created, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center from that point and enjoys a amused expression when thinking about the journey.
“You might get a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in under three years,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you consider: ‘Yeah, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the task of bringing the all-American Cadillac brand, a works entry sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into F1.
“Building an grand prix team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you rarely get the possibility to transform cultural approach.”
With each passing day that goes by thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the approaching critical moment in the Australian GP and expectations are being managed.
“One must presume that any incoming team joining the grid is going to be last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal noted earlier this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we turn up and we operate well. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team doing the right things on the race track. After we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we will focus on improvement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Push
In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their invaluable experience in performing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver reflected the mood of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I am confident with this setup, with these individuals, this staff, it's entirely possible we won't be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in full swing, with employees now at in excess of 400 and planned to reach the target of 600 members swiftly. Complementing their current base at Silverstone, the organization are in the midst of building an main base at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are developing the center to build the power unit, scheduled for the 2029 season – until then they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organization, contrary to the direction in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred.
Apollo Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we recognize how tough it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, rather than the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of project teams all focusing on different aspects of the program across a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a process where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that leader communicates with a manager at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says Chester. “We give authority to staff to handle things directly. Avoiding hierarchical consent for all decisions is far more efficient and more rapid.”
The Future
The efficacy of this nimble approach will be tested in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a considerable amount on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
