Just over one year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the official approval as the world of Formula One's newest entrant for 2026. Building the squad from the ground up has required a intense pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One converges on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the final race of the campaign to be held in the US, 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 come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are cognizant there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent team in the spring of 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 enjoys a wry smile when considering the journey.
“There might be a short period thinking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “But then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical direction at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the mission of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a works entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors, into F1.
“Establishing an grand prix team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you won't have the opportunity to alter organizational mindset.”
With each day that goes by thoughts are sharper on the approaching decisive point in Australia and expectations are being managed.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he felt the organization had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So we turn up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team executing the proper actions on the track. When we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate progression from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Drive
In August they contracted Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem notable for their priceless expertise in competing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the mood of combative optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We face a massive task to do, and we expect almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I am confident with this setup, with this group, these personnel, it's entirely possible we can't manage to advance swiftly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in full swing, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and planned to attain the goal of six hundred rapidly. Complementing their present headquarters at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of finishing an HQ at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to produce the new engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated structure, at odds with the direction in Formula One for more centralization, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester alluded.
NASA Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” said Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in July. “We are pragmatic, we know how challenging it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure akin to that of NASA's, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the program at a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a process where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a leader in another department, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” explains Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for all decisions is so much cleaner and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this flexible approach will be proven in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
