Just over a full year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the green light as Formula One’s most recent entry for 2026. Constructing the squad from the ground up has required a frenetic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As Formula One descends on Vegas this weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be held in the America, with around 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed project in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was created, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and gets a wry smile when considering the ride.
“You might get five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in less than three years,’” he notes. “Then the very next instant you consider: ‘Well, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical direction at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the challenge of launching the iconic American Cadillac name, a works entry sponsored by the owner, GM, into F1.
“Establishing an grand prix team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you won't have the chance to alter organizational mindset.”
With every day that goes by focus are more focused on the looming decisive point in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.
“One must presume that any new team entering the sport is going to be last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted recently and while the CTO shared this view he believed the team had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation performing the correct procedures on the race track. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate improvement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Effort
In late summer they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo distinguished for their vast knowledge in competing at the front in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the mood of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a massive task to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. In my view with this setup, with this team, these personnel, there’s no reason why we won't be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in full swing, with staff now at over 400 and intended to hit the objective of six hundred quickly. In addition to their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the process of finishing an headquarters at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to produce the power unit, scheduled for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex structure, at odds with the movement in F1 for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred to.
Apollo Model
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how difficult it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all tackling different aspects of the mission in a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a process where someone has a problem and they report it to their manager, that leader communicates with a manager at a different location, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” notes Chester. “So we empower people to really get on with it. Avoiding hierarchical consent for everything is far more efficient and more rapid.”
The Future
The success of this flexible approach will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a considerable amount on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
