Approximately one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last granted the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's latest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from scratch has entailed a hectic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As Formula One descends on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac 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 around three months to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress 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 operation in March 2023 shortly after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart ever since and gets a wry smile when thinking about the experience.
“You might get five minutes looking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we have built in under three years,’” he says. “And then the following moment you realize: ‘Yeah, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the mission of launching the all-American Cadillac brand, a works entry supported by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an Formula One team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you rarely get the chance to change team culture.”
With each day that elapses focus are increasingly concentrated on the impending critical moment in Melbourne and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team coming in is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal stated recently and while Nick Chester echoed this he believed the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So that we turn up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team executing the right things on the track. When we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Drive
In the summer they signed Checo Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo notable for their priceless expertise in performing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the mood of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. In my view with this setup, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we won't be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To that end hiring has been in full swing, with employees now up to in excess of 400 and planned to attain the goal of 600 quickly. In addition to their existing facility at the UK base, the organization are in the phase of completing an HQ at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to build the new engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex organisation, contrary to the trend in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred.
NASA Inspiration
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” stated Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we recognize how tough it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all tackling distinct elements of the project in a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a process where a challenge emerges and they report it to their manager, that leader consults a leader somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” says Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to really get on with it. Eliminating managerial sign-off for each action is much smoother and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this nimble methodology will be proven in the pressure of racing next season and there is no little amount at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
