Approximately a full year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last given the go-ahead as F1's newest entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from the ground up has entailed a frenetic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As Formula One arrives on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the campaign to be held in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic operation in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was established, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center from that point and enjoys a amused expression when reflecting on the journey.
“You might get five minutes reflecting at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we have built in less than three years,’” Chester states. “Then the next minute you consider: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical development at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the mission of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the parent company, GM, into Formula One.
“Creating an Formula One team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you rarely get the opportunity to alter team culture.”
With every day that passes focus are more focused on the impending critical moment in Melbourne and expectations are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad coming in is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon noted this year and while Chester shared this view he thought the squad had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that we are a serious contender performing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate improvement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive
In August they recruited Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo remarkable for their vast knowledge in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be probably a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to finish last. I am confident with this setup, with these individuals, these personnel, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with employees now up to more than 400 and scheduled to reach the goal of six hundred swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the phase of building an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are developing the plant to build the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will run power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, contrary to the trend in F1 for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Chester alluded.
NASA Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, rather than the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of project teams all working on various components of the program at a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a protocol where someone has a problem and they report it to their manager, that leader talks to a supervisor somewhere else, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” says Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to really get on with it. Avoiding management approval for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this flexible methodology will be proven in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a considerable amount at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
