Approximately twelve months ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the official approval as the world of Formula One's most recent participant for 2026. Establishing the team from nothing has required a intense pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As Formula One converges on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be hosted in the United States, with approximately three months to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent operation in March 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center ever since and has a amused expression when thinking about the ride.
“You can have a short period reflecting at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Amazing, how impressive what the team has created in less than three years,’” Chester states. “But then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical direction at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the mission of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the corporate entity, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an grand prix team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you don’t get the chance to alter team culture.”
With each passing day that elapses thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the impending decisive point in the Australian GP and expectations are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team coming in is going to be last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated recently and while Nick Chester echoed this 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 are a serious contender doing the correct procedures on the race track. Once we prove that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on progression after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive
In August they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a pair remarkable for their vast knowledge in operating at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. In my view given this organization, with this team, these people, there’s no reason why we won't be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with staff now up to in excess of 400 and scheduled to hit the objective of six hundred rapidly. In addition to their current base at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of building an headquarters at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are building the plant to produce the new engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, different from the direction in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred.
NASA Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” remarked the team principal just before the British GP in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we understand how tough it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Well, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of project teams all tackling various components of the mission at a different facilities.
“When you must follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they report it to their manager, that supervisor consults a supervisor somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” explains Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable people to handle things directly. Avoiding managerial sign-off for each action is so much cleaner and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this nimble methodology will be tested in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a significant degree at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
