Approximately one year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the official approval as the world of Formula One's latest participant for 2026. Building the team from the ground up has involved a frenetic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 arrives on Vegas this race weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be staged in the United States, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent project in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its center ever since and enjoys a knowing grin when considering the experience.
“You can have a short period thinking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he says. “But then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the owner, General Motors, into F1.
“Establishing an F1 team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you won't have the opportunity to transform organizational mindset.”
With each day that goes by minds are more focused on the approaching moment of truth in Australia and expectations are being handled.
“You have to assume that any new team entering the sport is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon stated recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he believed the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we arrive and we operate well. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender doing the correct procedures on the track. After we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on forward movement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Drive
In August they contracted Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a pair notable for their invaluable experience in performing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas reflected the mood of combative optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and we expect almost certainly a difficult start, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I believe with this setup, with this group, these personnel, there’s no reason why we won't be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To that end recruitment has been in full swing, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and scheduled to attain the objective of 600 swiftly. In addition to their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the process of finishing an headquarters at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are building the facility to manufacture the new engine, planned for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, at odds with the trend in F1 for increased consolidation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Chester alluded.
NASA Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how difficult 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 embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a decentralized management comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of specialist groups all focusing on various components of the mission at a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a protocol where someone has a problem and they report it to their manager, that supervisor talks to a leader in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” explains Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to handle things directly. Moving away from managerial sign-off for everything is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this flexible strategy will be proven in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a significant degree riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
