Approximately twelve months previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately given the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's latest entry for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from scratch has entailed a intense operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One converges on Las Vegas this weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be hosted in the America, with around 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed project in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core since then and gets a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“There might be a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “But then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yeah, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
The CTO had success at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical development at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the challenge of introducing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a factory team backed by the owner, GM, into Formula One.
“Creating an grand prix team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you don’t get the chance to alter team culture.”
With each day that goes by focus are sharper on the looming moment of truth in Australia and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the squad had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So we show up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender doing the correct procedures on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate progression after that.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Drive
In August they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for the 2026 season, a pair notable for their invaluable experience in operating at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I believe with this structure, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in top gear, with staff now at over 400 and planned to reach the target of six hundred swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at Silverstone, the team are in the midst of completing an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are developing the facility to manufacture the power unit, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex organisation, contrary to the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred.
NASA Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” stated the team principal just before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how difficult it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management similar to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of project teams all focusing on different aspects of the program in a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a process where an issue arises and they report it to their team leader, that supervisor consults a leader in another department, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” says Nick Chester. “We give authority to people to handle things directly. Avoiding hierarchical consent for all decisions is so much cleaner and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this agile strategy will be evaluated in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is no little amount on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
