🔗 Share this article

Just over one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the official approval as Formula One’s latest entry for the 2026 season. Building the organization from nothing has involved a hectic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One converges on Las Vegas this weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.

The Tight Timeline to Australia

At the final race of the campaign to be hosted in the United States, with around 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.

The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent operation in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its core ever since and enjoys a amused expression when thinking about the journey.

“You might get a short period looking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in under three years,’” Chester states. “And then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yes, we still have quite a lot to do.’”

A One-of-a-Kind Task

The CTO had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical development at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the challenge of launching the all-American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.

“Building an Formula One team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you rarely get the chance to change cultural approach.”

With each day that elapses minds are increasingly concentrated on the looming decisive point in Melbourne and expectations are being set realistically.

“You have to assume that any incoming team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon commented recently and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the team had a point to prove as well.

“The initial objective we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So we arrive and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team doing the right things on the circuit. When we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show improvement from there on.”

Pilot Selection and Team Building Effort

In August they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their vast knowledge in competing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of fighting spirit.

“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be probably a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to finish last. I believe with this setup, with these individuals, this staff, there’s no reason why we won't be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and taste victory.”

To realize that ambition recruitment has been in top gear, with employees now reaching over 400 and planned to hit the goal of 600 members quickly. In addition to their present headquarters at Silverstone, the team are in the process of building an HQ at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are building the facility to build the power unit, scheduled for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organization, different from the trend in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO alluded.

Space Mission Model

“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” said the team principal ahead of the British GP in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we recognize how challenging it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”

So they have implemented, instead of the traditional management structure, a decentralized management comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all tackling distinct elements of the project in a different facilities.

“When you must follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their supervisor, that leader talks to a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” says Nick Chester. “We give authority to people to handle things directly. Eliminating hierarchical consent for all decisions is much smoother and faster.”

The Future

The efficacy of this agile methodology will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a considerable amount on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta