Just over one year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last given the green light as Formula One’s most recent entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from nothing has entailed a frenetic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As Formula One converges on Vegas this race weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the campaign to be hosted in the US, with around three months to go before they make their debut for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic operation in early 2023 soon after it was established, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart ever since and has a knowing grin when thinking about the journey.
“You might get five minutes reflecting at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in under three years,’” he says. “And then the next minute you think: ‘Well, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Nick Chester had success at Renault in Alonso's victorious years of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical direction at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the task of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a factory team supported by the owner, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an F1 team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you won't have the chance to change cultural approach.”
With each passing day that passes focus are sharper on the approaching decisive point in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.
“One must presume that any new team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated this year and while Chester echoed this he believed the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that we are a serious contender executing the correct procedures on the race track. After we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate improvement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Effort
In late summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a duo notable for their priceless expertise in operating at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver expressed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and we expect probably a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to finish last. I am confident given this organization, with this team, this staff, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in top gear, with employees now reaching more than 400 and scheduled to attain the goal of six hundred rapidly. In addition to their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the midst of finishing an HQ at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are developing the plant to manufacture the new engine, set for the 2029 season – until then they will run power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organisation, contrary to the trend in the sport for more centralization, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred to.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” stated Lowdon just before the British GP in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how tough it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all working on different aspects of the program at a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a process where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that supervisor talks to a leader in another department, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” explains Chester. “We give authority to staff to handle things directly. Eliminating management approval for everything is much smoother and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this agile methodology will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
