Just over twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last granted the green light as the world of Formula One's most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from the ground up has involved a hectic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As the sport descends on Vegas this weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be hosted in the US, with just over a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, 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 adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed project in the spring of 2023 not long after it was created, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart ever since and has a knowing grin when considering the ride.
“There might be a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “But then the following moment you consider: ‘Well, we still have a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the iconic American Cadillac name, a works entry backed by the owner, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you won't have the opportunity to alter team culture.”
With each day that elapses thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the impending critical moment in the Australian GP and goals are being managed.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he thought the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So we turn up and we operate well. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the race track. Once we prove that our credentials are solid, then we want to show forward movement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Effort
In late summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a tandem distinguished for their invaluable experience in competing at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the mood of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and we expect probably a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to finish last. In my view with this setup, with this group, these people, it's entirely possible we can't manage to advance swiftly to the front and achieve good results.”
To that end hiring has been in full swing, with employees now at in excess of 400 and intended to reach the objective of 600 members rapidly. Complementing their present headquarters at the UK base, the team are in the midst of finishing an HQ at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are developing the center to produce the new engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – until then they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a intricate organisation, different from the movement in F1 for increased consolidation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Chester referred.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we understand how difficult it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all tackling distinct elements of the project across a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a process where someone has a problem and they report it to their manager, that leader consults a leader somewhere else, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” notes the CTO. “Therefore we enable team members to really get on with it. Avoiding management approval for each action is much smoother and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this flexible methodology will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a significant degree riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta
