A little more than twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's most recent entrant for 2026. Building the organization from scratch has involved a intense pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the campaign 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 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic operation in March 2023 soon after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core ever since and has a amused expression when considering the ride.
“There might be a short period looking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Wow, what an achievement what the team has created in less than three years,’” he notes. “Then the next minute you think: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Task
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious seasons of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical development at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the task of launching the all-American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Creating an grand prix 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 rarely get the chance to transform team culture.”
With each day that elapses focus are increasingly concentrated on the impending moment of truth in Australia and goals are being managed.
“One must presume that any incoming team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he thought the squad had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So that we arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that we are a serious contender executing the right things on the track. When we prove that our credentials are solid, then we want to show progression after that.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Effort
In late summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a duo distinguished for their priceless expertise in competing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. In my view with this structure, with this team, this staff, there’s no reason why we can't manage to advance swiftly to the front and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in top gear, with staff now reaching in excess of 400 and intended to hit the objective of 600 members quickly. Alongside their current base at the UK base, the organization are in the midst of completing an HQ at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are constructing the plant to build the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the trend in the sport for greater centralisation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Chester alluded.
Apollo Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” said Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in July. “We are pragmatic, we know how difficult it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of project teams all working on various components of the program across a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a process where someone has a problem and they report it to their supervisor, that manager consults a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says Nick Chester. “We give authority to team members to really get on with it. Moving away from hierarchical consent for each action is far more efficient and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this agile approach will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a considerable amount on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
