A little more than twelve months ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the go-ahead as Formula One’s newest entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from nothing has entailed a hectic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be held in the United States, with around three months to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed operation in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart since then and enjoys a amused expression when thinking about the ride.
“There might be a short period thinking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in under three years,’” he says. “But then the next minute you realize: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
The CTO had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical development at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the challenge of introducing the iconic American Cadillac name, a factory team backed by the parent company, General Motors, into F1.
“Building an grand prix team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you don’t get the possibility to alter organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that passes minds are increasingly concentrated on the approaching decisive point in the Australian GP and goals are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any new team entering the sport is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated recently and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender executing the right things on the track. Once we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on progression after that.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Drive
In late summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their invaluable experience in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to finish last. I am confident with this structure, with these individuals, these personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in full swing, with employees now at over 400 and planned to reach the objective of 600 members swiftly. Complementing their present headquarters at the UK base, the team are in the midst of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are developing the center to produce the new engine, planned for the 2029 season – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex structure, at odds with the trend in the sport for increased consolidation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which the CTO alluded.
Apollo Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” remarked the team principal just before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we recognize how challenging it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, instead of the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of project teams all tackling distinct elements of the mission at a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a process where someone has a problem and they report it to their supervisor, that manager communicates with a leader somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” says the CTO. “Therefore we enable team members to handle things directly. Eliminating hierarchical consent for each action is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this nimble approach will be tested in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a significant degree riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
