Just over one year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last given the official approval as the world of Formula One's latest entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from the ground up has involved a frenetic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One arrives on Vegas this race weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be held in the America, with around 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the nascent project in March 2023 soon after it was created, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its core from that point and enjoys a amused expression when reflecting on the journey.
“There might be five minutes reflecting at what you’ve done and think: ‘Incredible, how impressive what the team has created in under three years,’” Chester states. “But then the next minute you consider: ‘Well, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical direction at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the all-American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Establishing an Formula One team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you won't have the opportunity to transform cultural approach.”
With each day that passes focus are increasingly concentrated on the looming critical moment in Melbourne and targets are being handled.
“You have to assume that any incoming team joining the grid is going to be last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Chester shared this view he felt the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we should be there,” he says. “So that we arrive and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender doing the right things on the circuit. When we prove that our credentials are solid, then we want to show progression subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Effort
In the summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo distinguished for their vast knowledge in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Bottas echoed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and we expect most likely a difficult start, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. In my view with this setup, with this group, these personnel, there is every reason that we can't manage to advance swiftly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in top gear, with employees now reaching in excess of 400 and scheduled to hit the objective of 600 members rapidly. In addition to their present headquarters at the UK base, the squad are in the process of building an main base at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to produce the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – until then they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organization, contrary to the movement in F1 for increased consolidation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred to.
Apollo Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” said the team principal shortly before the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how difficult it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all working on distinct elements of the mission at a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where an issue arises and they raise it up to their supervisor, that supervisor communicates with a leader somewhere else, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” explains Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to take charge. Avoiding hierarchical consent for each action is far more efficient and quicker.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this flexible approach will be evaluated in the pressure of racing next season and there is a considerable amount at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
