Approximately one year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the official approval as Formula One’s latest entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from the ground up has required a intense operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As the sport converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac understand the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be held in the United States, with around 100 days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic team in March 2023 soon after it was created, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart since then and enjoys a knowing grin when thinking about the journey.
“You can have a brief moment reflecting at what you’ve done and say: ‘Incredible, how impressive what the team has created in less than three years,’” Chester states. “And then the following moment you realize: ‘Yeah, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's title-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac marque, a works entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Creating an Formula One team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you rarely get the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”
With every day that passes thoughts are more focused on the approaching decisive point in Australia and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team coming in is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the organization had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we arrive and we operate well. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team executing the correct procedures on the race track. When we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate improvement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Push
In the summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for the 2026 season, a tandem notable for their vast knowledge in competing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the mood of determined optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “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 remain at the rear. In my view given this organization, with this team, these people, it's entirely possible we can't manage to get relatively quickly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with personnel now up to over 400 and intended to attain the target of 600 members rapidly. Alongside their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the midst of completing an HQ at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are building the center to build the power unit, set for 2029 – until then they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex organization, at odds with the direction in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred to.
NASA Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” remarked the team principal ahead of the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we know how difficult it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all working on distinct elements of the mission across a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they report it to their team leader, that supervisor talks to a leader at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” notes 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 effectiveness of this nimble approach will be evaluated in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a significant degree at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
