A little more than twelve months previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last granted the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's latest entry for 2026. Building the team from scratch has involved a frenetic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As the sport arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be held in the America, with approximately 100 days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed team in the spring of 2023 soon after it was created, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart from that point and has a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“There might be a brief moment thinking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the next minute you realize: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in command of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac marque, a works entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an grand prix team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you don’t get the chance to change organizational mindset.”
With every day that goes by focus are increasingly concentrated on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and expectations are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team joining the grid is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal stated this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he felt the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we show up and we function efficiently. We want to show that we’re a proper team executing the correct procedures on the race track. When we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate improvement after that.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Effort
In the summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a duo notable for their invaluable experience in competing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Bottas expressed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. In my view with this setup, with this group, these personnel, there’s no reason why we won't be able to advance swiftly to the front and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with personnel now up to in excess of 400 and intended to attain the goal of 600 quickly. Complementing their existing facility at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of completing an HQ at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are developing the center to manufacture the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will use power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a sophisticated structure, contrary to the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred to.
Apollo Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” stated the team principal shortly before the Silverstone race in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how challenging it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, instead of the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all tackling different aspects of the project in a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a process where someone has a problem and they report it to their supervisor, that manager consults a leader in another department, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says Nick Chester. “So we empower people to really get on with it. Moving away from management approval for everything is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this agile strategy will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a considerable amount on the line for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
