Approximately twelve months in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the green light as Formula One’s latest entry for 2026. Building the squad from scratch has required a intense pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the season finale of the championship to be hosted in the United States, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent team in the spring of 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its center since then and has a amused expression when considering the ride.
“You might get a brief moment thinking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he says. “And then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, there is still a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
The CTO had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a factory team sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an Formula One team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you rarely get the chance to transform organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that goes by focus are sharper on the looming decisive point in Australia and expectations are being handled.
“One must presume that any incoming team entering the sport is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon stated earlier this year and while the CTO shared this view he thought the team had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “In order that we arrive and we operate well. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team executing the correct procedures on the track. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate improvement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Effort
In late summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a pair notable for their invaluable experience in competing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas echoed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and we expect probably a tough opening, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. In my view with this structure, with this team, these personnel, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in overdrive, with employees now up to in excess of 400 and scheduled to reach the objective of six hundred quickly. Complementing their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the midst of building an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the power unit, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the direction in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester alluded.
Apollo Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” said the team principal ahead of the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we recognize how challenging 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, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of project teams all working on various components of the project in a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a process where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their team leader, that leader consults a leader somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” says the CTO. “Therefore we enable people to take charge. Eliminating hierarchical consent for everything is so much cleaner and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this agile strategy will be tested in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a significant degree riding on this for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
