Just over a full year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the official approval as Formula One’s latest entry for 2026. Establishing the squad from nothing has required a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As the sport arrives on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the season finale of the season to be staged in the US, with just over 100 days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent operation in the spring of 2023 not long after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center ever since and gets a amused expression when reflecting on the journey.
“There might be a brief moment thinking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has been quite like the challenge of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an grand prix team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you rarely get the opportunity to change cultural approach.”
With each day that elapses thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the impending moment of truth in Australia and targets are being handled.
“You have to assume that any new team coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal stated this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he felt the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So that we show up and we operate well. We want to show that we’re a proper team doing the right things on the race track. When we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on improvement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive
In late summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo notable for their vast knowledge in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I believe with this structure, with this team, this staff, it's entirely possible we can't manage to advance swiftly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in top gear, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and planned to hit the target of 600 members rapidly. Complementing their current base at the UK base, the team are in the process of completing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are building the facility to build the new engine, set for the 2029 season – until then they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex structure, contrary to the direction in the sport for more centralization, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred to.
Apollo Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” remarked Lowdon shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we recognize how challenging it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, rather than the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of specialist groups all focusing on different aspects of the mission across a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their manager, that supervisor talks to a leader at a different location, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” notes Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for all decisions is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
The Future
The success of this nimble approach will be tested in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a considerable amount on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
