A little more than one year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the green light as F1's most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from nothing has involved a hectic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 converges on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the season finale of the season to be hosted in the US, with approximately three months to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed team in the spring of 2023 not long after it was created, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart ever since and enjoys a knowing grin when thinking about the ride.
“You might get a brief moment looking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Wow, how impressive what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “And then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, we still have a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in Alonso's title-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the task of introducing the iconic American Cadillac name, a works entry supported by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Establishing an grand prix team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the possibility to change team culture.”
With each passing day that goes by focus are sharper on the impending moment of truth in Australia and goals are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon commented recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he felt the team had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we should be there,” he says. “In order that we show up and we operate well. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender executing the correct procedures on the track. After we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression from there on.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Drive
In the summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo distinguished for their vast knowledge in performing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it’s going to be most likely a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. In my view with this setup, with this group, these personnel, there is every reason that we can't manage to progress rapidly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in top gear, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and scheduled to hit the objective of 600 swiftly. In addition to their present headquarters at Silverstone, the team are in the phase of building an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are building the facility to produce the power unit, scheduled for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex organization, at odds with the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester alluded.
Apollo Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” said Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we understand how challenging it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, instead of the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of project teams all focusing on different aspects of the project in a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a procedure where a challenge emerges and they report it to their manager, that supervisor consults a leader in another department, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” says Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to handle things directly. Avoiding management approval for everything is much smoother and more rapid.”
The Future
The success of this agile methodology will be proven in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is no little amount riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
