A little more than twelve months previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the official approval as F1's most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from scratch has involved a frenetic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As Formula One converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be hosted in the America, with approximately 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed project in early 2023 soon after it was formed, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its core from that point and gets a knowing grin when thinking about the experience.
“You might get a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in less than three years,’” Chester states. “And then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yes, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the owner, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an grand prix team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you won't have the chance to alter team culture.”
With every day that passes focus are more focused on the approaching critical moment in the Australian GP and goals are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal noted recently and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So we arrive and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender doing the right things on the circuit. After we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we want to show forward movement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Drive
In August they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their pilots for the 2026 season, a duo notable for their invaluable experience in operating at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the mood of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to stay at the back. In my view with this setup, with these individuals, these personnel, there’s no reason why we can't manage to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in full swing, with staff now reaching more than 400 and intended to attain the objective of 600 members swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of completing an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to produce the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex structure, at odds with the direction in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred.
Apollo Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon just before the British GP in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we recognize how challenging it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management akin to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of project teams all focusing on various components of the program in a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their supervisor, that leader consults a supervisor at a different location, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” explains the CTO. “Therefore we enable team members to really get on with it. Eliminating management approval for all decisions is much smoother and quicker.”
The Future
The efficacy of this agile strategy will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a significant degree at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
