Just over twelve months previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately given the green light as the world of Formula One's newest participant for 2026. Establishing the squad from the ground up has entailed a frenetic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be staged in the United States, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed operation in the spring of 2023 soon after it was formed, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center ever since and has a knowing grin when considering the experience.
“There might be a brief moment looking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Amazing, how impressive what the team has created in less than three years,’” he notes. “Then the next minute you realize: ‘Yeah, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the challenge of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the corporate entity, GM, 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?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you won't have the opportunity to transform cultural approach.”
With each day that goes by focus are more focused on the approaching moment of truth in Australia and expectations are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he believed the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So that we turn up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team performing the right things on the race track. Once we prove that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Effort
In the summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem notable for their priceless expertise in operating at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the attitude of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to finish last. I believe with this setup, with this team, this staff, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to the front and taste victory.”
To that end hiring has been in overdrive, with employees now reaching in excess of 400 and intended to reach the goal of 600 rapidly. In addition to their present headquarters at Silverstone, the team are in the phase of building an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to build the power unit, set for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex structure, at odds with the direction in the sport for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred.
Apollo Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” said Graeme Lowdon just before the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how difficult it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, instead of the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of project teams all working on different aspects of the mission at a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they report it to their manager, that supervisor communicates with a supervisor in another department, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” notes Chester. “We give authority to staff to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for each action is far more efficient and more rapid.”
The Future
The success of this nimble approach will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a considerable amount riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
