A little more than a full year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the official approval as F1's latest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from the ground up has involved a hectic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One arrives on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the season finale of the championship to be staged in the America, with approximately 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent operation in March 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core since then and has a wry smile when considering the ride.
“There might be five minutes looking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what the team has created in less than three years,’” he says. “Then the next minute you consider: ‘Well, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the corporate entity, GM, into F1.
“Building an Formula One team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you won't have the chance to change team culture.”
With each day that goes by minds are more focused on the approaching critical moment in Melbourne and targets are being handled.
“You have to assume that any incoming team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” the team principal commented this year and while Chester shared this view he thought the squad had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So we arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation executing the correct procedures on the circuit. When we prove that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate progression after that.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push
In the summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a tandem notable for their priceless expertise in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the mood of combative optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be probably a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I am confident with this setup, with these individuals, this staff, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in full swing, with employees now up to in excess of 400 and intended to hit the goal of 600 rapidly. Alongside their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of building an headquarters at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are constructing the plant to produce the new engine, planned for the 2029 season – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a intricate organization, at odds with the movement in F1 for increased consolidation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred.
Apollo Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how challenging it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all focusing on different aspects of the program in a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a process where an issue arises and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor communicates with a leader in another department, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says the CTO. “Therefore we enable team members to take charge. Moving away from managerial sign-off for each action is much smoother and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this flexible approach will be evaluated in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a considerable amount on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta
