Approximately one year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the official approval as the world of Formula One's most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from nothing has involved a intense work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport descends on Vegas this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be held in the United States, with just over 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent project in early 2023 soon after it was formed, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart from that point and gets a amused expression when reflecting on the ride.
“You can have five minutes thinking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you think: ‘Yeah, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the task of bringing the all-American Cadillac name, a factory team sponsored by the owner, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an grand prix team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you don’t get the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”
With each passing day that passes minds are sharper on the looming moment of truth in Australia and targets are being managed.
“You have to assume that any incoming team joining the grid is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” the team principal stated earlier this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So that we turn up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation doing the correct procedures on the track. When we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we will focus on improvement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Drive
In August they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair notable for their invaluable experience in competing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas echoed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be probably a difficult start, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I am confident given this organization, with these individuals, these people, there’s no reason why we can't manage to progress rapidly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in full swing, with staff now reaching in excess of 400 and scheduled to hit the objective of six hundred rapidly. Complementing their existing facility at Silverstone, the team are in the phase of building an headquarters at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are building the plant to manufacture the power unit, planned for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a intricate organisation, different from the trend in the sport for more centralization, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred.
Apollo Blueprint
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” stated the team principal shortly before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, instead of the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all working on different aspects of the mission in a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they report it to their manager, that manager consults a supervisor at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to take charge. Moving away from management approval for each action is far more efficient and quicker.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this flexible methodology will be evaluated in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a significant degree on the line for the sport, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
