Just over one year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the official approval as Formula One’s latest participant for 2026. Constructing the team from the ground up has required a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be hosted in the America, with around three months to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its center from that point and enjoys a knowing grin when thinking about the ride.
“You can have a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he says. “And then the following moment you think: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
The CTO had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the task of introducing the all-American Cadillac marque, a works entry sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an grand prix team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you don’t get the opportunity to transform cultural approach.”
With each day that elapses focus are sharper on the looming moment of truth in Australia and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “In order that we arrive and we function efficiently. We want to show that we are a serious contender doing the proper actions on the race track. After we prove that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate improvement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Effort
In the summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo distinguished for their vast knowledge in competing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it will likely be most likely a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I am confident with this structure, with this team, these personnel, there is every reason that we can't manage to get relatively quickly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in full swing, with employees now at in excess of 400 and scheduled to reach the target of six hundred swiftly. Complementing their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the process of completing an HQ at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are developing the plant to produce the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a complex organization, at odds with the movement in the sport for increased consolidation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which the CTO alluded.
Apollo Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” said Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British GP in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how tough it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, rather than the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of project teams all tackling various components of the mission across a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a protocol where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their supervisor, that leader consults a manager at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” explains Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to handle things directly. Moving away from managerial sign-off for all decisions is so much cleaner and quicker.”
The Future
The success of this agile approach will be proven in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a significant degree riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
