A little more than a full year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the green light as F1's newest entrant for 2026. Building the team from the ground up has required a intense operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be staged in the US, with approximately 100 days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent operation in early 2023 not long after it was formed, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core from that point and enjoys a amused expression when thinking about the journey.
“You might get a brief moment looking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Amazing, how impressive what the team has created in under three years,’” he notes. “But then the very next instant you think: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a works entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an Formula One team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you rarely get the chance to transform cultural approach.”
With each passing day that passes minds are sharper on the impending critical moment in the Australian GP and targets are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad coming in is going to be last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Chester shared this view he thought the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So we show up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team doing the right things on the track. When we prove that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on improvement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Drive
In August they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a duo notable for their priceless expertise in competing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver echoed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We face a massive task to do, and it’s going to be probably a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I am confident with this setup, with this group, these personnel, there is every reason that we won't be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and scheduled to hit the goal of 600 swiftly. In addition to their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of building an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the center to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex structure, contrary to the trend in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Chester referred to.
Apollo Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” said Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, rather than the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of project teams all working on distinct elements of the project across a different facilities.
“When you must follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor communicates with a leader at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” explains Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to take charge. Avoiding managerial sign-off for each action is far more efficient and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this agile methodology will be evaluated in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a significant degree at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
