A little more than twelve months previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the green light as Formula One’s most recent entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from scratch has entailed a frenetic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One descends on Vegas this race weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the season to be held in the United States, with around three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed operation in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was created, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its core ever since and gets a knowing grin when considering the ride.
“You can have a brief moment thinking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Incredible, how impressive what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he says. “But then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Nick Chester had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has truly matched the mission of introducing the all-American Cadillac marque, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an Formula One team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you don’t get the possibility to change team culture.”
With every day that passes thoughts are more focused on the looming moment of truth in Australia and goals are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal noted earlier this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that we’re a proper team executing the right things on the race track. Once we prove that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on forward movement after that.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Effort
In the summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a duo remarkable for their vast knowledge in operating at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it will likely be most likely a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, this staff, it's entirely possible we can't manage to advance swiftly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in full swing, with personnel now up to over 400 and intended to reach the objective of 600 members quickly. Alongside their current base at Silverstone, the organization are in the midst of completing an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the center to produce the power unit, set for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organisation, different from the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Chester alluded.
NASA Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” stated Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how difficult it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all focusing on different aspects of the mission in a different facilities.
“When you must follow a process where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that supervisor consults a leader in another department, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” notes Nick Chester. “We give authority to people to take charge. Avoiding managerial sign-off for all decisions is much smoother and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the pressure of racing next season and there is no little amount riding on this for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta
