Approximately one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the official approval as Formula One’s newest entry for the 2026 season. Building the organization from nothing has required a intense work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be held in the America, with around three months 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 never-ending challenge, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed team in March 2023 not long after it was established, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center from that point and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the experience.
“There might be a brief moment looking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Wow, how impressive what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the next minute you think: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical development at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a works entry supported by the owner, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an grand prix team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you rarely get the possibility to transform cultural approach.”
With each day that passes minds are more focused on the looming critical moment in Australia and targets are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad coming in is going to be last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated recently and while the CTO echoed this he believed the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team doing the right things on the track. After we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show forward movement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Effort
In the summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their priceless expertise in performing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and we expect most likely a difficult start, because it is F1. But we’re not there to stay at the back. In my view with this structure, with this team, this staff, there’s no reason why we can't manage to progress rapidly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To that end hiring has been in full swing, with staff now at in excess of 400 and planned to reach the objective of 600 quickly. In addition to their current base at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of finishing an main base at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to manufacture the 2029 engine, planned for the 2029 season – until then they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate structure, contrary to the trend in the sport for increased consolidation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred.
Apollo Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” stated the team principal shortly before the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we recognize how tough it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a decentralized management similar to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of project teams all tackling various components of the mission in a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a protocol where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their team leader, that supervisor communicates with a supervisor at a different location, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” explains Chester. “We give authority to staff to really get on with it. Eliminating managerial sign-off for all decisions is much smoother and more rapid.”
The Future
The efficacy of this nimble methodology will be tested in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a considerable amount riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta