Approximately a full year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's newest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from nothing has entailed a hectic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As the sport arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be hosted in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in the spring of 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart since then and gets a wry smile when considering the experience.
“You can have a brief moment looking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he says. “And then the next minute you think: ‘Well, we still have a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious seasons of the mid-2000s and was in command of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has been quite like the challenge of introducing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, GM, into F1.
“Creating an Formula One team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you rarely get the opportunity to change organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that goes by focus are increasingly concentrated on the approaching decisive point in Australia and targets are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any incoming team entering the sport is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he thought the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So that we turn up and we operate well. We want to show that we are a serious contender executing the proper actions on the race track. When we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate improvement after that.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Drive
In late summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a tandem distinguished for their vast knowledge in operating at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to finish last. In my view with this setup, with this team, this staff, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in full swing, with staff now up to over 400 and scheduled to reach the goal of six hundred swiftly. In addition to their existing facility at Silverstone, the organization are in the phase of building an main base at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the center to produce the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, contrary to the movement in F1 for greater centralisation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Chester alluded.
Apollo Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” remarked the team principal ahead of the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how challenging it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of specialist groups all focusing on various components of the project at a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a process where an issue arises and they report it to their team leader, that manager consults a supervisor somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” says the CTO. “We give authority to people to take charge. Avoiding managerial sign-off for all decisions is so much cleaner and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this agile strategy will be tested in the pressure of racing next season and there is a significant degree on the line for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
