A little more than twelve months previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the official approval as Formula One’s latest entry for 2026. Constructing the squad from the ground up has required a hectic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As Formula One descends on Las Vegas this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the final race of the campaign to be held in the America, with around a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic team in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart from that point and enjoys a amused expression when considering the experience.
“There might be a short period reflecting at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he says. “Then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has quite compared with the challenge of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the parent company, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an F1 team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you don’t get the opportunity to change organizational mindset.”
With every day that elapses focus are sharper on the impending moment of truth in Australia and expectations are being handled.
“One must presume that any new team coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “In order that we show up and we operate well. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation performing the correct procedures on the track. Once we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we will focus on progression subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Drive
In the summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a duo distinguished for their vast knowledge in performing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver expressed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a massive task to do, and we expect almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. In my view given this organization, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to the front and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with employees now up to more than 400 and planned to hit the objective of six hundred quickly. In addition to their existing facility at Silverstone, the team are in the phase of finishing an headquarters 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 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organization, different from the movement in the sport for more centralization, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester alluded.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” stated Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Alright, 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 non-hierarchical approach similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of project teams all focusing on different aspects of the mission across a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a protocol where a challenge emerges and they report it to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a manager somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” explains Nick Chester. “We give authority to people to really get on with it. Avoiding hierarchical consent for everything is so much cleaner and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a considerable amount riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
