A little more than a full year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the official approval as Formula One’s latest participant for 2026. Building the squad from scratch has required a frenetic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac are aware time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be held in the United States, with around a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are aware there will not be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in the spring of 2023 not long after it was created, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core from that point and has a knowing grin when thinking about the journey.
“You can have five minutes looking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he says. “And then the next minute you think: ‘Yeah, we still have a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has been quite like the task of launching the all-American Cadillac marque, a works entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an grand prix team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you don’t get the chance to transform organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that goes by focus are increasingly concentrated on the approaching moment of truth in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal noted this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he thought the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that we are a serious contender performing the proper actions on the circuit. After we prove that our credentials are solid, then we want to show improvement after that.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Drive
In the summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their vast knowledge in performing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We face a massive task to do, and we expect almost certainly a difficult start, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. In my view with this structure, with this team, these people, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with staff now at more than 400 and planned to reach the objective of 600 members swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of finishing an headquarters at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are constructing the facility to manufacture the new engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will use power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, different from the trend in F1 for more centralization, and has led to the innovative team culture to which the CTO alluded.
NASA Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” said Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how challenging 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 embraced, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management akin to that of NASA's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all focusing on various components of the project across a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a process where an issue arises and they raise it up to their team leader, that leader communicates with a manager at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” explains Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to take charge. Avoiding management approval for everything is far more efficient and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this flexible approach will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a considerable amount riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their reserve driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
