Just over one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the green light as the world of Formula One's most recent entrant for 2026. Building the team from the ground up has entailed a intense pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One converges on Las Vegas this weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the championship to be held in the US, with approximately three months to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent team in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core ever since and has a amused expression when considering the journey.
“You can have a brief moment reflecting at what you’ve done and say: ‘Wow, how impressive what we have built in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “But then the following moment you consider: ‘Well, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious seasons of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical development at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has truly matched the challenge of bringing the iconic American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Establishing an Formula One team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you rarely get the possibility to transform organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that goes by thoughts are more focused on the looming critical moment in Australia and targets are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad coming in is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he believed the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So that we show up and we operate well. We want to show that this is a professional operation doing the correct procedures on the race track. After we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on improvement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Drive
In late summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a duo distinguished for their vast knowledge in performing at the front in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of determined optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We have a massive task to do, and we expect probably a difficult start, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I am confident with this setup, with these individuals, these people, there is every reason that we won't be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To that end recruitment has been in overdrive, with staff now reaching over 400 and planned to reach the objective of 600 quickly. In addition to their present headquarters at Silverstone, the team are in the midst of finishing an HQ at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are building the center to produce the new engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex organisation, at odds with the direction in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred.
Space Mission Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” remarked Lowdon shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how difficult it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all focusing on distinct elements of the project at a different facilities.
“When you must follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their supervisor, that manager communicates with a manager somewhere else, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” explains Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to handle things directly. Eliminating managerial sign-off for everything is much smoother and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this flexible approach will be tested in the heat of competition next season and there is a considerable amount riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
