A little more than a full year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the official approval as the world of Formula One's newest entry for the 2026 season. Building the team from nothing has entailed a frenetic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be hosted in the United States, with approximately a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed team in early 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center ever since and has a amused expression when reflecting on the ride.
“You might get five minutes reflecting at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what the team has created in under three years,’” Chester states. “Then the next minute you think: ‘Well, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning seasons 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 launching the all-American Cadillac brand, a works entry sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Establishing an Formula One team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you don’t get the possibility to change organizational mindset.”
With each day that goes by minds are increasingly concentrated on the approaching moment of truth in the Australian GP and expectations are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad entering the sport is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal commented recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he thought the team had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So we turn up and we operate well. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation doing the right things on the race track. Once we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Drive
In late summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair notable for their invaluable experience in operating at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Bottas echoed the mood of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to finish last. I am confident with this structure, with these individuals, this staff, there is every reason that we can't manage to get relatively quickly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To that end recruitment has been in top gear, with staff now up to over 400 and planned to reach the goal of 600 rapidly. Alongside their existing facility at Silverstone, the team are in the process of completing an HQ at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are constructing the center to manufacture the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a intricate organisation, contrary to the direction in F1 for more centralization, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester alluded.
NASA Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” remarked the team principal shortly before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we understand how tough it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all focusing on different aspects of the program in a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where an issue arises and they report it to their manager, that supervisor consults a supervisor in another department, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” says Chester. “We give authority to staff to handle things directly. Avoiding management approval for all decisions is much smoother and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this nimble approach will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is no little amount on the line for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
