A little more than twelve months ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the go-ahead as Formula One’s newest entrant for 2026. Establishing the organization from scratch has required a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be held in the United States, with around a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent project in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart since then and has a knowing grin when thinking about the experience.
“You can have a brief moment reflecting at what you’ve done and think: ‘Wow, how impressive what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the next minute you consider: ‘Well, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an Formula One team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you won't have the possibility to alter team culture.”
With each passing day that elapses focus are sharper on the impending decisive point in the Australian GP and expectations are being managed.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented this year and while Chester echoed this he thought the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation executing the proper actions on the race track. Once we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Push
In late summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their priceless expertise in competing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the mood of determined optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. In my view with this setup, with these individuals, these personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in overdrive, with employees now at in excess of 400 and planned to hit the goal of 600 members swiftly. Complementing their present headquarters at the UK base, the organization are in the midst of completing an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the 2029 engine, planned for the 2029 season – for now they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organization, contrary to the trend in the sport for greater centralisation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester alluded.
Apollo Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” remarked Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how challenging it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, instead of the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all tackling distinct elements of the mission in a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a procedure where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their team leader, that supervisor communicates with a manager in another department, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” explains Chester. “So we empower staff to handle things directly. Eliminating management approval for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
The Future
The success of this agile strategy will be evaluated in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a considerable amount at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta
