A little more than a full year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the official approval as the world of Formula One's latest entrant for the 2026 season. Building the organization from scratch has involved a intense work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As F1 converges on Vegas this race weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be staged in the United States, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic project in March 2023 soon after it was established, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core ever since and gets a wry smile when reflecting on the experience.
“You can have a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he says. “Then the next minute you consider: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Chester had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the challenge of introducing the all-American Cadillac brand, a factory team backed by the owner, General Motors, into F1.
“Building an grand prix team from nothing, 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 change organizational mindset.”
With each day that passes thoughts are sharper on the impending decisive point in Australia and expectations are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team coming in is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated recently and while Chester echoed this he felt the team had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we turn up and we operate well. We want to show that we’re a proper team executing the correct procedures on the track. After we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show improvement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Drive
In the summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a duo distinguished for their vast knowledge in operating at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it will likely be probably a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe with this setup, with this team, this staff, there’s no reason why we can't manage to advance swiftly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with employees now up to more than 400 and intended to attain the goal of 600 swiftly. Alongside their present headquarters at the UK base, the team are in the process of completing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the center to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, different from the direction in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Chester referred.
NASA Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” stated Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we know how tough it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all tackling distinct elements of the project at a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their supervisor, that leader talks to a supervisor in another department, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” explains the CTO. “Therefore we enable staff to take charge. Moving away from managerial sign-off for each action is far more efficient and quicker.”
The Future
The efficacy of this agile methodology will be tested in the heat of competition next season and there is a considerable amount riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
