A little more than twelve months in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's most recent entrant for 2026. Building the organization from nothing has entailed a hectic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be held in the United States, with around 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic project in early 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core from that point and has a wry smile when thinking about the ride.
“You can have five minutes thinking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Wow, what an achievement what the team has created in less than three years,’” Chester states. “Then the next minute you think: ‘Well, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Task
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the mission of introducing the all-American Cadillac marque, a factory team supported by the corporate entity, General Motors, into F1.
“Establishing an grand prix team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you don’t get the chance to change organizational mindset.”
With each day that goes by minds are increasingly concentrated on the impending moment of truth in Australia and expectations are being managed.
“You have to assume that any new team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal noted this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he believed the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So we show up and we operate well. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation doing the proper actions on the track. Once we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we will focus on improvement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive
In August they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a duo notable for their priceless expertise in performing at the front in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver echoed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We have a massive task to do, and we expect probably a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I believe given this organization, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we can't manage to advance swiftly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in full swing, with employees now reaching over 400 and planned to attain the target of 600 swiftly. In addition to their current base at the UK base, the organization are in the midst of completing an HQ at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to build the power unit, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, different from the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” said the team principal just before the Silverstone race in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of project teams all tackling different aspects of the mission across a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a procedure where an issue arises and they raise it up to their supervisor, that manager consults a supervisor somewhere else, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” explains Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for each action is much smoother and faster.”
The Future
The success of this agile methodology 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 American Colton Herta
