Just over one year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the official approval as Formula One’s most recent participant for the 2026 season. Building the team from scratch has required a frenetic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As Formula One arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the campaign to be staged in the United States, with around three months to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are aware there will not be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed operation in the spring of 2023 not long after it was created, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart ever since and enjoys a knowing grin when considering the ride.
“You can have five minutes looking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you think: ‘Well, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's title-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in control of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the task of introducing the all-American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you don’t get the opportunity to alter organizational mindset.”
With each day that goes by focus are more focused on the approaching critical moment in the Australian GP and goals are being handled.
“One must presume that any new team entering the sport is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Chester shared this view he believed the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we show up and we operate well. We want to show that we are a serious contender executing the right things on the race track. When we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we will focus on progression from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive
In late summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a pair distinguished for their priceless expertise in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I believe with this setup, with this group, these personnel, it's entirely possible we won't be able to advance swiftly to the front and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with staff now up to in excess of 400 and planned to reach the objective of 600 rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at the UK base, the organization are in the process of building an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are building the facility to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex structure, at odds with the trend in the sport for increased consolidation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Chester alluded.
Space Mission Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” remarked Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, rather than the traditional management structure, a flat management structure akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all tackling various components of the mission in a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a leader at a different location, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” explains Chester. “Therefore we enable people to handle things directly. Moving away from hierarchical consent for everything is far more efficient and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this nimble methodology will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a significant degree on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
