A little more than one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's most recent entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from scratch has involved a hectic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport descends on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be staged in the United States, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are cognizant there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent operation in early 2023 soon after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart ever since and has a wry smile when thinking about the experience.
“There might be five minutes reflecting at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we’ve done in under three years,’” Chester states. “And then the very next instant you think: ‘Yeah, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's victorious campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in command of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has been quite like the task of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a factory team supported by the corporate entity, General Motors, into F1.
“Creating an F1 team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the chance to alter team culture.”
With every day that elapses minds are increasingly concentrated on the looming critical moment in the Australian GP and goals are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon noted this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he thought the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “In order that we arrive and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team executing the correct procedures on the race track. After we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Effort
In late summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem notable for their vast knowledge in competing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the attitude of combative optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he said. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and we expect most likely a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. In my view with this setup, with this team, this staff, there’s no reason why we won't be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To that end hiring has been in overdrive, with personnel now reaching in excess of 400 and planned to hit the goal of 600 rapidly. Complementing their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the phase of finishing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are constructing the center to produce the new engine, set for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organization, at odds with the trend in F1 for greater centralisation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester alluded.
Space Mission Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” stated the team principal ahead of the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a decentralized management akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all working on various components of the project at a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a procedure where a challenge emerges and they report it to their team leader, that manager talks to a leader at a different location, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” explains Nick Chester. “So we empower people to take charge. Eliminating management approval for everything is much smoother and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this agile strategy will be proven in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a considerable amount riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
