Approximately one year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the official approval as the world of Formula One's newest entrant for 2026. Constructing the organization from nothing has entailed a intense work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be hosted in the United States, with around three months to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic project in early 2023 not long after it was formed, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and gets a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“You might get a short period thinking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he says. “Then the very next instant you think: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
The CTO had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has quite compared with the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the owner, GM, into F1.
“Creating an grand prix team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the chance to transform organizational mindset.”
With every day that passes minds are sharper on the approaching decisive point in Australia and goals are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect 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,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Chester echoed this he believed the team had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So we show up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation performing the correct procedures on the race track. After we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show forward movement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Push
In August they contracted Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem notable for their vast knowledge in operating at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver reflected the mood of combative optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and we expect probably a tough opening, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I am confident with this structure, with this group, this staff, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with staff now up to in excess of 400 and planned to reach the target of 600 rapidly. Alongside their present headquarters at Silverstone, the squad are in the process of building an main base at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are developing the facility to produce the new engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex organisation, at odds with the movement in F1 for greater centralisation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester alluded.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” said the team principal ahead of the British Grand Prix in July. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how challenging it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all tackling distinct elements of the mission at a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where an issue arises and they escalate it to their team leader, that supervisor communicates with a supervisor in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “Therefore we enable team members to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for all decisions is far more efficient and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this agile approach will be evaluated in the pressure of racing next season and there is no little amount at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
