A little more than twelve months previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the go-ahead as Formula One’s latest participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from scratch has entailed a intense pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the season finale of the campaign to be staged in the United States, with just over 100 days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent operation in early 2023 soon after it was formed, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core since then and enjoys a knowing grin when thinking about the ride.
“You might get a brief moment reflecting at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we’ve done in under three years,’” he notes. “Then the next minute you think: ‘Yes, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical development at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the task of introducing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the parent company, GM, into Formula One.
“Creating an F1 team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you rarely get the chance to alter team culture.”
With every day that elapses focus are more focused on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and expectations are being managed.
“One must presume that any new team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the team had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that we are a serious contender doing the correct procedures on the circuit. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we want to show improvement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Push
In August they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a tandem notable for their invaluable experience in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver reflected the mood of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and we expect most likely a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. In my view given this organization, with this group, these personnel, there’s no reason why we can't manage to get relatively quickly to the front and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with staff now up to in excess of 400 and planned to attain the target of six hundred rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at Silverstone, the team are in the process of building an HQ at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to build the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, different from the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred.
Apollo Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” said the team principal shortly before the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we know how difficult it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the program in a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a process where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their team leader, that manager consults a manager somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says Nick Chester. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Moving away from management approval for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this agile strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
